


lavender blue

by awkwardedgeworth



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Hunger Games AU, M/M, Mentions of Drowning, Minor Character Death, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:28:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27175886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardedgeworth/pseuds/awkwardedgeworth
Summary: "Sakusa, right?"The tribute across from him only has noodles, blond hair falling over his forehead. His eyes are arrogant. There are two black studs in his ears. Sakusa files this fact away."What do you want?" He asks.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 27
Kudos: 307





	lavender blue

**Author's Note:**

> ****CW: this is a hunger games AU so the list will be long— mentions of drowning/sharks, entomophagy (eating bugs), mentions of whipping/tongues getting cut out, spiders/bugs/cockroaches, choking, knife/weapons, talks of death/suicide, minor character deaths****
> 
> please read the tags carefully

" _It was written in the Charter that every twenty-five years, there will be a Quarter Quell_."

The sun is raging on his head.

It's an unbearably hot end of July right when the heatwave is at its climax that the Reaping is held. He darts his eyes away from the giant screen in front of him and looks towards the upper right corner, where he could see the very air bending above the ground.

_"On this third Quarter Quell, the Capitol would like to remind everyone how gracious and kind we are. This year, in reflection to our generosity, the number of tributes will be halved._

_"There will only be a total of twelve tributes and all will be male."_

Sakusa watches Komori's face twitch beside him. Everyone on the right side of the is twisting their faces in anger. The girls are furious; they want their glory, their victor status, the ones who are eighteen are flushing in fury. For what else have they been training their whole lives for then?

Some of the parents standing, corralled into a group nearby by the Peacekeepers around them, visibly sigh in relief. Those ones must have young children then. Even if it's ten in the morning, Sakusa could see several sparse boats chugging along the coast, having special permission from the Head Peacekeeper to continue fishing while the Reaping is unfolding, filled with adults who are past reaping age, he's sure.

Twelve tributes only, one from each district, Sakusa presumes. Which means that the arena this year and Gamemakers will be brutal. Last year's games was the first of its kind, a desert arena where nothing much happened asides from tributes dying of thirst. Of course the Capitol is vying for entertainment. And why not make the stakes higher by halving the amount of tributes?

But as for why it has to be all males....

Komori says, "It's going to be me," As the group of past victors standing in front of the stage wheel away the giant glass ball carrying the girls' names. They don't have an escort assigned for them here simply because District 4 nearly wins every three or four years. There are ample mentors to help the Capitol with their brainwashing.

Sakusa stares at the red burn marks hiding beneath Komori's button up, concealed. A group of Peacekeepers had dragged his uncle and several rebels back into town, dressed in dark clothing and carrying sacks of rations and items befitting of an escape yesterday evening and whipped them all twenty-seven times. One for each illegal item in their possession. 

Then they pulled his tongue out and sliced it off, making an example. The rebels must be silenced.

Komori's family had watched in silence. They weren't allowed near the bodies, the burn marks on Komori's collarbones is a price of an attempt as the other rebels are dragged away to a hovercraft near the Peacekeeper's side of town. For his uncle, they told him to stay on the ground, deaf to his whimpers of pain.

By morning, his body was gone and there was only a pool of dried blood in the city square where Sakusa was ushered to stand for the Reaping.

_It's because of me_ , Komori adds wordlessly. One tribute per district means that there's a fifty-fifty chance of District 4 sending off a girl, and if Komori is right and his theory that the President is personally quashing the rebellion, it has to be a male tribute that makes it to the Games.

"You don't know that," He mumbles.

"I do."

They both fall silent, watching Oikawa Tooru stick his hand into the reaping ball, pulling a white card out. He has seven years on them, winning his Games when he was sixteen.

A bright boy, skilled at weaving nets and pearls and pretty shells into jewelry at his parent's shop, is a ghost compared to the quiet, solemn twenty four year old opening the white card.

"The tribute for District 4," Oikawa says, eyes dull, "Is Komori Motoya."

What Sakusa anticipates is a roar of voices, hands sticking up into the air, reveals itself as silence.

There are no volunteers. There are no volunteers and Sakusa watches with terrified eyes as his cousin freezes, then gets tugged out by a Peacekeeper hiding his smile behind his helmet. He looks around them, desperation sinking into the pit of his stomach, at the girls who are openly staring at them, at the boys who wanted glory and who he was counting on to sacrifice themselves. Isn't this what they wanted? Glory? Why isn't anyone yelling and offering themselves up?

The Peacekeeper's hands tug on Komori's button up roughly, the red welt on his neck showing up on the large screens around him. It's this fact that makes Sakusa shake himself before he's parting through the bodies around him, schoolmates, neighbors, until he's running because Komori's mother— his biological aunt— can't handle another child dying off in the games.

"— _Volunteer!_ " He pushes off the Peacekeepers, his voice is raspy, "I volunteer! Leave him alone!"

Sakusa hears a quiet sob from the group of parents standing by the stage. Oikawa's eyes blinks between Komori and him.

Sakusa swallows. He's shaking, watching everyone look at him. When he darts his eyes up to the screens, he sees his shocked expression blown up a million times in high definition, then it cuts immediately away to another angle of him, from the side, as a camera floats next to him and whirs.

"Kiyoomi!" Komori runs up to him and pushes him back, eyes wide, face pale in the sunlight, "No, go back!"

Sakusa tussles with him, hissing, " _You're not going to last a single day_ ," His cousin gets seasick from boats, doesn't know how to swim and has a fear of the ocean. The nearest he's ever come to water is the sink where he washes his hands before he makes their fish-shaped, seaweed tinged bread.

"You can't do this!"

"It's already done!"

" _Up you go_ ," A new voice interrupts, breaking them apart as a young woman, her black curls tied into a low bun, pearl drop earrings dancing in the wind, goes between them.

Sakusa looks up to see Hiromi's face twist before Peacekeepers finally had enough of them stalling and drags Sakusa by the shoulder. He steps up to the stairs and slowly makes his way to the podium. Once he's up and Oikawa is saying something that sounds like buzzing, it's clear that everyone's faces are pinched in fear.

The rebels. They must have been trying to shut them all up. A fear tactic. The names in the reaping ball must all be children or nieces and nephews of the rebels then. He spots several classmates who had been boasting about volunteering and find their expressions blank.

His sister has pulled Komori aside to where the adults are, arms around him. Sakusa stares at them, at his cousin's red-rimmed gaze, at his aunt weeping into her hands, at his own mother staring sadly up at him, a boy with chestnut hair among a trio of dark curled women.

They're going to make him an example once he's in the Games, he realizes, being smoothly turned around by Oikawa as they enter the city's library building. Sakusa is deposited into a cozy room filled with ancient books, the carpet beneath his feet plush as he feel the cooling sensation of the air conditioning unit above.

There's a window at the end of the room, sunlight streaming in. Sakusa automatically moves forward to it, feeling his black slacks warming in the heat as he plays with the seafoam green cuffs of his shirt. He sees a strip of beach and fishermen going back out. The boats that had been at the coastline while they were standing around earlier are coming back in. He can see lobster and several tons of fish in nets being hauled off into a pool of water by the docks.

The door opens. He spins around and blinks when his aunt stumbles through, Komori right behind her.

He wordlessly gives them his hands and goes to his knees when his aunt crouches down and sobs, Komori rubbing her shoulders.

"First Motoya's older brother, then my husband, then my son and now you," She sobs, "Who else will they take away from me?"

Sakusa grips her hands, strong, bony, like his, except where he's skilled in nets, she's skilled in making bread braids, "I'll be fine. District 4 always makes the top six, and the arenas must have water now after what happened last year."

She says something unintelligible, squeezing his hands tightly. Sakusa looks up to see that Komori's eyes are watery again.

"You're looking at me like I'm already dead," He tries to joke, mussing the stiff bangs Komori had gelled back.

His cousin huffs a laugh and they crouch together on the floor until the Peacekeeper asks them to leave for his next guest.

His mother and sister walks through the door next, eyes solemn. Sakusa gives them the same speech, to stop looking at him like he's a whale carcass that sometimes get washed up on shore. His sister flicks his forehead and tells him to be careful and to find a trident or a harpoon immediately. There's almost one in every games since the Capitol loves them and skewering people brings about a good death scene.

His mother tugs him down and presses a light kiss on his cheek. She doesn't cry, no, but she does tell him to use his wits and to remember that his enemy aren't the other tributes, it's the arena itself.

He leans back and looks at her, really looks at the fine lines in the corners of her eyes and the wrinkles on her forehead that appeared when his father had fallen overboard into the ocean. She refused to allow Hiromi to sign tesserae out when the nets aren't bringing in much, always giving them parts of her meal while she worked from midnight to dusk, making sure the fish are fresh when they're loaded onto the hovercrafts to the Capitol.

"Here, your token, if you want."

Hiromi extends a palm out towards him, her black pearl drop earring glinting in the sunlight. The orb throws multicolored hues, of blues and greens. Sakusa fastens it into one of the holes of his ear and hears the footsteps of the Peacekeepers coming, hugging his family one last time.

The Capitol is only a few hours from District 4.

Oikawa doesn't do much with him on the train. While he munches on an assortment of fruits that are better than what the markets have back at home and giving Oikawa his earring to be turned into a necklace ("The Gamemakers won't like the sharp end, give it to me."), he watches the scenery flash by. 

"There's one thing I'm glad about our district at least, 4 is self-sufficient and needs little training."

Oikawa hands him back his token, the black pearl now on a string of silver. Sakusa inspects his handiwork and found it sturdy, flickering his gaze back up to his mentor.

Oikawa sips tea from a large mug. It's full of the tea sitting between them and whatever amber colored liquor he poured from his flask, hidden in his suit. Sakusa mumbles a thanks and doesn't go to the windows when they stop at the Capitol, refusing to greet the Capitol citizens screaming his name, repulsed at everything that represents them.

He's then tweezed and waxed within an inch of his life. After that is Akaashi, who only peered closely at his face before leading him into a side room with a squat low table heavy with plates and bowls.

Here, sitting in a bathrobe with noodles and dumplings and soups teeming with shellfish and vegetables, Sakusa recognizes some delicacies from his district, namely the shellfishes and crustaceans that are grilled and steamed. He looks at the various grains of rice, finding one tureen full of short-grained, white variety and another with speckled, brown ones. 

Akaashi has been the stylist for District 4 since Oikawa became victor. He has natural black hair and eyes the color of the sea that compliments the red eyeliner he's wearing. 

He looks almost normal in comparison to the crowd at the Capitol's train station.

"Please," Akaashi gestures to the food, not knowing that Sakusa isn't that hungry because he just ate half a melon on the train ride here. But Sakusa looks for something interesting, since this is the only time he'll ever get to see foods from other districts, and picks an offering of noodles in a light, but salty sauce.

They watch in silence at the TV, now showing the entire broadcast of the reaping. District 1, after the shouts and process of volunteering is smoothed out, boasts a boy with bleached hair and a swagger. He'll be trouble to take out, Sakusa notes. Two and Three are the same age, with the same lean muscles that speaks of an advantage except for the fact that the former is also a volunteer. He watches his own reaping, hearing the host of the Games, Kuroo Tetsurou, make a surprised exclamation that District 4 had only one volunteer.

From Five: a tiny, boy with orange hair, fourteen. He's trembling like a bird and Sakusa feels an ache in his chest when he sees a snot-nosed little girl, with the same fiery hair, run up to him before she's yanked away by someone. So far, everyone reaped is closer towards the cut-off stage. Five won't last long.

Six and Seven look like weeds, tall and skinny with no amount of muscle. 6 has produced several victors but they have a rampant problem with morphling addiction. Eight is also an eighteen year old, dark brown hair with a large, burly frame and a scruffy chin. Nine is also eighteen but looks tiny as he stands next to several well-built farm boys, standing in silence as his amber eyes blink a certain type of terror.

Ten is an impassive eighteen year old as well, with muscles that are larger than everyone's. His face is blank. There seems to be flecks of gold in his hazel-green eyes.

Eleven is a wiry seventeen year old— like him— that volunteered for his sibling. Akaashi, who Sakusa almost forgets exists next to him, lowers his curry down.

"You never see the poorer districts volunteer."

Sakusa watches as the brothers hug on screen, "Hm."

Twelve is a tiny thing with grey hair. The reaping ends with Kuroo reminding everyone to tune in the next few days as they follow the Tributes around the Training Center. The Capitol's symbol flashes on screen and then Sakusa is staring into his reflection, realizing he hadn't eaten anything at all, too distracted by the eleven boys.

"Nervous?"

Sakusa is calm, "No. Five through twelve will be easy. Maybe not Ten," He's calculating his chances, looking into Akaashi's eyes, "It depends on the arena."

He hopes there's water. If there's water, it'll be a salvation. If he gets his hands on netting or a harpoon, he'd be unstoppable. He has to show the Capitol they don't own him, that he's not their entertainment, thinking about his uncle getting his tongue cut off.

His uncle. Sakusa looks down at his food, wondering where he is when Akaashi moves forward to cover his cup to prevent an Avox from refilling it. The shadow of the Avox shifts and Sakusa automatically covers his cup too, looking up to say no thank you when his hand seizes and the plate of food tumbles down onto the rug.

Green eyes look back at him. Green, like the pines that line the trees off the cliff Sakusa jumps off of during the summer months before his father passed. Green, like the small emerald ring on his aunt's left hand. Green, like the exact shade of Komori's eyes.

Sakusa stares at his uncle, watching him immediately bend down to scoop the noodles back onto the plate as fast as he can. Another Avox joins him, heads bent together as Akaashi tears his eyes away and looks to the side.

"Un—"

Sakusa sees it. A shock collar hidden beneath the black turtlenecks the Avoxes are wearing. He clamps his mouth shut and watches as they clean his spill, his uncle jumping up and grabbing another plate full of noodles, vegetables and slices of steamed chicken with bamboo shoots. He keeps his eyes lowered down as Sakusa's throat runs dry, accepting the lunch with shaking fingers.

He's alive. He wonders if he could send a message to his aunt.

"Sakusa?"

He spins around to blink at Akaashi.

Akaashi is holding a sketchbook, "The Welcome Tour is in a few hours. Should we talk about your costume?"

Oikawa asks him if he wants advice going into training. Sakusa doesn't. He knows the perils of the games, forced to watch it in the academy where they train them for hours at a time. 

He's angry. He's angry that his world will know no peace for the next couple of weeks. Gamemakers watch his every movement, Sakusa notes, they speak to the trainers at the stations he passed through during lunchtime. Once in a bathroom, one compliments his district's bread, how flaky and balanced the taste is. Another one, when he accidentally gets into an elevator, says that his sister is a charming lady who will miss him, so he should win and go home.

They're all threats. The bread, he knows, represents Komori's family. One wrong move and they'll take his sister and extended family out.

Whatever his uncle did, it must have been enough to trigger the anger of the President.

He keeps up with the news broadcasted in Four. Whippings. More rebels are flushed out. The Peacekeepers are sending reports that an unusual current seems to be sucking the fish away from the coasts. Sakusa nearly throws the tablet at a wall, tired from a day memorizing edible plants, because he can see in the background of the charred docks of several painted planks floating in the ocean that he knows belongs to his mother's boat.

They're burning his District's food supply. If he loses, his District will starve. They'll have to start taking out tesserae at this rate.

"You have to make allies," Oikawa says during breakfast. He's stopped hiding the flask but still drinks wine out of his teacup, "You're sour and you won't reel in sponsors like that. I think it's a good plan to stick with the Careers until half the boys are eliminated."

"Why would I give myself the chance of getting my back stabbed? I'm not teaming up with them."

Oikawa fixes him with a look across the table. The Careers always form a pack every year to hunt the weaker tributes out of the way before turning on each other, "What are you going to do?"

"Survive by myself, I don't trust anyone out there."

"I'll see where that ego takes you, then."

Sakusa glares at him and continues to shovel more bread into his mouth. He's eating a dinner roll dipped in chocolate pudding. 'Breakfast' here is a loose term. If he doesn't like the spread of food on the giant table they have, he can look around for a screen and press a button.

The reason why he's eating such high caloric food between training (he hogged an entire bowl of nuts yesterday night in between watching the horror from his home district) is because in the off chance that there is no water, he at least can survive a few days without food.

He can't survive without water though.

"Sakusa, right?"

Sakusa looks up from eating his lunch, another calorie heavy meal. Pork cutlet, noodles in an opaque chicken broth that feels like he'll keel over from the amount of fat in it, and a bed of rice and curry is what he has.

The tribute across from him only has noodles, unlike the boy from 11 and 12, who are sharing a table and are eating like the food from the main buffet table could disappear right in front of their eyes. His eyes are arrogant. There are two black studs in his ears. Sakusa files this fact away. He could always rip them out in the arena if it comes down to hand-to-hand combat.

"What do you want?" He intones dully.

"Do you want to join us? We're talking strategy there," One jerks his thumb to the other side of the lunch room, where the boy from Two, Three and surprisingly, the beefy eighteen year old from Ten, are sitting. Sakusa stares at his yellow hair and tries to school his face into something neutral.

"No thanks."

One blinks at him like Sakusa declared to kill his dog, "You're not joining us?"

"You should check your hearing if you need me to repeat it."

One shoots him a scowl, "Then go die first, Four."

Four. Distancing someone from their name is a great tactic to use in the games. Sakusa shrugs, hearing the scrape of his tray follow him as he turns to his meal. One and Two are groomed within an inch of their life, they somehow look better currently than when they were reaped. The blond atrocity on One's head is tuned into a more platinum, cool blond than what he had during the reaping.

Sakusa rips his eyes away but accidentally makes eye contact with Eleven and Twelve. Twelve blinks, startled that they're caught staring, and goes back to his meal. Eleven turns away, cheeks red.

Sakusa doesn't care. In fact, everyone here is pissing him off so he stands up and decides that he's going to eat lunch outside in the hallways.

This is Sakusa's plan.

Grab something near the Cornucopia when the timer goes, try to get a long distance weapon and sprint away as fast as possible from the bloodbath. Let the cannons fire, hide until there's two or three left before killing the Careers.

They spent all of last night after dinner with Akaashi sitting across of them, sipping on his coffee quietly and pretending that his ears aren't being deafen. Oikawa wanted him to put an act, any act, whether it be a flirtatious, cool playboy ("Why would I change myself to serve the Capitol?"), a quiet bookish boy who has never touched a spear in his life ("I'm not putting on _your_ act!") but Sakusa will _not_ waste his precious three minutes of undivided Capitol attention in silence.

"People will want to know why you volunteered for your cousin when no one else did! You got a _nine_ in training! Stop being difficult and pick something, anything! I don't know what angle to put you on."

Sakusa leered, "They're already going to take so much more of me, why the hell should I answer Kuroo's questions?"

It's Akaashi who settles the argument, his voice cool and detached, "Those people you hate are going to be your only life line between a burn salve that will save your hands so you can eat dinner or starvation."

Sakusa clenched his jaw. 

He knew this, he knew how important sponsors are, even remembering the way his town pooled money to give Oikawa a small bit of kindling that ended up saving his skin during the first cold night of the games.

But can't they see? The reason why they're invested in him is the fact that he's solely there for their entertainment. It's because of the Capitol that he's forced to do this, a circus elephant playing tricks.

"Let's try this," Oikawa sighed, leaning forward and grabbing the giant pitcher of ice coffee to pour into his cup. He seemed to be slowly sobering up the closer they are to the actual Games. "You don't have to give them your entire heart, but give a bit, make them dig, make them squirm for it, make sure you're mysterious enough that they want more."

Of course, when Kuroo asks him about his strategy, Sakusa knows that somewhere backstage, Oikawa is having kittens as he speaks.

"...You'll have to find out," He twitches one side of his mouth up to the blinding lights. Someone near the front gasps, falling off their chair. Smiling feels foreign after years of frowning, but he can play pretend.

His suit is the color of the sea, dark blue and black on his shoulders before morphing into a paler, seafoam blue reminiscent of his Reaping clothes at the ankles. There are hand-sewn jewels encrusting the lapels and Akaashi had taken the painstaking time to adhere each individual tiny diamond dust into his hair, making his literal hair sparkle. He also tapped a sort of glittery powder on Sakusa's cheekbones that catches the light too.

There's a set of delicate pearl studs in his ears and an ear cuff with the pattern of shells on the platinum. Akaashi has dressed him like the ocean itself, dark and forbidding but with a little glimmer of treasure like the story books that aren't banned in his home town.

Then to top it off, his prep team gave him a smoky eye and has straightened and re-curled his hair, making sure it falls down his forehead in the right way. He personally thinks he looks like those teacup poodles on the Capitol streets but Akaashi had laughed and told him he looks 'ethereal'.

"You'd make a good model when you win," Akaashi had said, smudging his makeup even more ten seconds before Kuroo invited him on stage, a tool belt full of brushes clipped to his hip.

_When_ you win.

Not _if_ you win.

He's transported back onto the stage when Kuroo asks him about his act of kindness. 

"He's my cousin."

"Ah, the familial ties must be strong," They play a portion of the reaping where he's lunging out of his section, his voice magically amplified in the theater.

He doesn't say anything after that. Only blinks and gives Kuroo nothing, not even a word when he switches to another question, this time about his costume. He can hear Oikawa crying in his head now and internally sighs.

"I'm just glad it's not a wet t-shirt contest like Oikawa's. I don't think my collarbones and pectorals are up for the challenge."

His flat tone earns him a roar of laughter from the audience. They must remember it then, how Oikawa's stylist then had dressed him in shirts that were more like drapes of netting across his shoulders and torso and really took the 'fishing' part of 'fishing district' to heart, slicking his hair back with a watery gel and decaling his skin in temporary fish scales tattoos.

Kuroo gives a donkey laugh as the cameras cut to Oikawa backstage, laughing and turning his face up in a smile as his eyes promises a certain murder for Sakusa once his timer beeps. And it does, over the roar and applause of people. 

"And we're wrapping it up with District 4's only tribute, who seems to be closely guarding his secrets like a clam shell! Thank you, Sakusa, and good luck to you," Sakusa gratefully leaves, choosing not to stay backstage and opting getting more sleep than seeing the rest of the tributes' interviews.

He can always watch that on the hovercraft ride to the arena anyway.

When he wakes up, there are his favorites laid out by his uncle.

Three onigiris. A roll of bread in the shape of a fish, tinged faintly green from seaweed, scallops cooked in butter and a tall glass of water.

His uncle does not wish him good luck, but he does stand quietly by his side in the early hours of the morning, both of them watching the sun's rays slowly filter in from the dining room. When Sakusa has eaten everything on his plate, his uncle steps forward to clear it and briefly, very briefly, squeezes his elbow.

Akaashi trims his hair as they sit in his prep room. In the corner is a circular disk that will shoot him onto the arena grounds, but for now, Sakusa bends his neck, docile, and watches as his black hair fall to the ground in clumps.

He'd asked Akaashi to cut his bangs short. Keep everything short. The last thing he needs is for hair to fall into his eyes in the middle of an important scuffle and get himself killed. When he runs his hand towards the back, he finds himself with a buzzed back and shorter strands near the front.

Then the clothes arrive. Sakusa slips on a black t-shirt, olive green pants with lots of pockets and a thin raincoat the color of mud with an adjustable hood. He shoves his feet in grey socks and laces up his boots, feeling them mold to him perfectly.

Akaashi sighs, giving him a tired smile, "No bodysuits. No water nearby."

"That's okay, I'll get my water one way or the other."

Sakusa eats several more rolls from his district, wondering if each one is the one Komori shaped and downs several glasses of water, careful to not overdo it. He begins to go over every snare method in his head, hoping that there are young saplings nearby so he can strip their bark of and form some sort of twine as he glances anxiously at the clock on the wall.

A cool voice announces it's time. Akaashi gives him a nod and Sakusa thanks him for not making him look like a fool in front of thousands.

Akaashi only smiles and waves, a gold band on his left finger. Sakusa wonders if he's ever seen that before when the cylinder drops around him and he's rising, shutting his eyes against the sun.

His heart sinks.

They're in a clearing with the Cornucopia a gleaming horn of gold nearby. There's a small watering hole near it, in front of three tributes across of him. Items are scattered around their starting position. All around them are thick, tropical rainforests. He's starting to sweat from the humidity, glad that he asked for the last minute decision to cut his hair.

Since there are no telltale landmarks aside from this clearing, he might as well grab something near him and sprint towards the forest at his back.

A giant orange 10 floats above the Cornucopia. 

9\. It's counting down now. Sakusa darts his eyes left and right, trying to gauge who are around him, He's lucky, to his left is Eleven and the tiny, orange haired Five is to his right. He looks closer at the Cornucopia and sees a familiar, six and a half foot tall steel pole with a sharp spike at the end.

A harpoon!

"Three," An electronic voice counts down, "Two. One."

As soon as the numbers disappear, Sakusa launches himself off the platform like he's going to dive, but he keeps his body up and starts sprinting when his boots touches the ground, ducking low and snagging two backpacks and something slippery in his hands that he stuffs down his sleeve. The grass is nothing like the sands that he runs in, so he makes it to the Cornucopia ahead of Eleven and Five.

He's not the only one there. One and Two are already swinging mercilessly, tussling with Six and Seven. And! And _One has his harpoon!_

Sakusa sees red, slowing down and blindly looking at the weapon selection. He decides a machete with a serrated side on the flat edge is good enough, knocks over a case of something, and runs away, backpacks bouncing on his back. 

He crashes through the bushes and curses. The large leaves and knotted, tangled roots here are going to give him a sprained ankle. With his heartbeat pounding in his ears, Sakusa uses his machete to start whacking things aside as he jogs. He keeps an ear out for other tributes and unzips his jacket slightly. He's sticky with sweat and he's not even fifty meters into the jungle.

Sakusa finds a giant tree with a root system that could hide him and three other people snugly. There are fronds of palms in his face and he stops, listening to the forest. Clicks of animals, buzzing of something nearby but nothing crashing after him.

He crouches down low and shakes the slippery thing out of his sleeve. A poncho. Good, he can capture rain water with it and pool water into something. Machete aside, he sets down his two backpacks and opens the smaller one first, seeing a large spool of twine, a container of water purifying pills, bug spray, a tiny first aid's kit and a mysterious bottle of white tablets.

He squints at the label. _Plaquenil_ , it says.

He sets that aside and peeks through the larger backpack. A thin, olive shaded rope, a fire starting kit, an empty water bottle, a small fruit knife and a thin sleeping bag. Sakusa dumps all of his items into the bigger bag and folds the smaller backpack in half, stuffing it along inside. He keeps the fruit knife in his boots and starts spraying the bug spray around his face, neck and hands.

He decides to scale a tree to see his bearings when he nearly drives his hands into a spiny bark that's covered in quills. He stumbles and falls to the ground, flinching when a beetle hops out under a leaf. One more inch and he would've needed to use the first aid kit. He does a full body shiver as he looks around for a suitable tree and tucks his machete against his backpack's chest straps, climbing and making sure it doesn't get in his way.

He gets as high as he dares because he's put on a good few pounds of fat and the branches here are covered in moss, twisting his head left and right. It's just a forest around him and a clearing far away which he knows holds the Cornucopia.

He marks this area mentally as the area with the spiny, barbed trees with quills that could skewer right through his hand. Sakusa then picks a random direction and heads off, trying to find water.

When he finds water, it's Day 2 of the Games and he's so thirsty he nearly forgets he has to clear it with the purifying pills. He'd stumbled on a river connected to a waterfall. Sakusa almost cried when he saw fish swimming around beneath the surface.

He spent the first night tugging moss and various palm leaves over himself and sleeping curled up next to a giant root system, tightening his hood around him so bugs don't crawl into his ears. He didn't use the sleeping bag once since it's so humid and he's thinking about tossing it out when he hears a familiar bubble of a stream and took off in that direction.

Only Six and Seven died in the blood bath, which is bad news. Sakusa's mind, as he glumly waits for his water to be purified, sitting high in the branches of a tree, wonders if the Capitol rigged the game to send him only the best fighters from each district.

There's a crash behind him. A frazzled looking deer is stumbling around with a rope around her neck. Sakusa watches as someone tugs on it, yanking her throat when a smooth harpoon enters her abdomen.

The deer lies twitching as One, Two and Three come out of the palms, each carrying a backpack before One grabs the deer's neck and gives it a twist. Sakusa glares at the back of his head, drawing his legs up and trying to be as quiet as possible, hoping that they refill the bottle in front of him and get cholera or something.

They complain about making a fire with all the wet logs around them, moan about their mattress near the Cornucopia and wonder how to haul the deer back. Three, by the irritation on his face, looks the most annoyed.

"If we don't even need the meat then why bother?"

"Scaring off the game for other tributes is a tactic, come on, Konoha," One rolls his eyes, "Anyway, I wonder where Sakusa went. He's mine."

"You're still offended he didn't ally himself with us?" Two.

Konoha rolls his eyes, collecting giant leaves and tucking his machete in his belt loops. Sakusa watches as he makes a giant leaf blanket, putting one and one together when he motions the other two to drag the deer onto the giant leaves so they can drag it back with as little friction as possible on the forest floor.

"One, two and four always ally themselves!"

"Get over it man," Three growls. Sakusa likes him, blinking down, "Anyway, let's go back, Twelve might eat all the food without us."

So the Careers have Twelve with them instead of Ten. And they're most likely guarding the Cornucopia, which is a day's walk away from here. Sakusa's stomach churns, wondering why One was so keen on following him. Doesn't he have other people to take out first?

The Careers shuffle away, dragging food with them as Sakusa waits in the tree, marking the passage of time with the angle of how the sun falls onto the ground, finally sipping his water intermittently. He's hungry for sure, but he can't eat without a fire because raw fish has parasites and worms.

He decides to camp near the river. It might be stupid, but this is his element. In a pinch, he can drag tributes into the waterfall and hold them down. For the smaller tributes, it's possible. Sakusa might end up with an injury or two if he runs into the Careers since they're roughly the same size and built as him.

Of course, he would fare better with a harpoon or trident, but he sniffs that thought away, sprays more bug spray on himself and shrugs his jacket off, stuffing it into his backpack and using his machete to hack branches into firewood. He leaves several long branches alone, hoping to tie it so he can make himself an elevated platform on a tree branch so he can sleep high up and not on rotting fungus or whatever is on the forest floor.

Besides, he glances at the river, he doesn't trust it. The Gamemakers could easily make the entire arena flood and then he'd just drown in his sleep, regardless of his swimming skills.

Once he sweated through his shirt twice, drank two more bottles of water, he decides to wade into the slow moving part of the river, herding the fish into the base of the fall. Then he blocks their escape route with a woven barrier he made from palm fronds, jamming it firmly between two rocks. 

They can't go back into the river and they certainly can't swim up the waterfall.

He toes out of his boots and socks, rolling his pants up to his knees as he plunges in the chilly water. The fish come up to him, curious, like he has food. They're not like the saltwater ones he helps his mother catch and none of them boast red bellies so he's not dealing with piranhas. Their coats are a dull green with black splotches in areas, Sakusa thinks they might be tambaqui, from the pictures he memorized in the Training Center.

Sakusa wonders if he's eating the Capitol's pets if they're this docile to approach him when he shoots his hands in, catches one around the gills and throws it out, watching it flop on land.

A smooth stab to the back of their head with his fruit knife and three more fishes the length of his arm, he's finished catching dinner. He removes the barrier, guts the fish and tries to dry his feet as best as he can before putting his socks and boots back on.

He's glad for the thick canopy of trees above him now. Any smoke gets fanned out and he won't leave a trail, but still, he scrapes the wet bark off as best as he can and uses a large palm leaf to distribute the heat evenly to his food. Nightfall is approaching fast. The anthem blares when he's on his bed platform, airing his boots and socks out as he ties himself to the tree.

He didn't hear the cannons today at all, wondering if he missed them. No pictures of the tributes grace the skies and by the lack of trickery from the Gamemakers, it probably means that someone has been gravely injured today and the Capitol got a good show.

He breaks off the meat from his kills and eats them, wishing he has salt. But food is food and his stomach for once, isn't growling. He's not sure if he'll stay by the river, but it's a constant source of water and food asides from the tiny pond near the Cornucopia, so he can't complain for now.

A blast jolts him awake. One cannon. He wonders who it is. There's a faint light of dawn streaking across the sky and the leaves are wet. It must have just poured.

A second cannon. The earth is oddly rumbling. Sakusa shoots out of his sleeping bag, bundles it up and yelps, jamming his feet into his boots without socks and strapping his backpack to his chest.

He falls out of the tree, watching younger saplings lean and creak. A wave of water pours from the upper canopies, soaking his head. It's an earthquake. He should get out onto open land but there's nothing around him but trees. Sakusa puts his arms over his head and hopes that he could just ride it out and climb something when the earth stops quaking.

The moment the earth stops, he shoots up the tree, watching as a wave of brown water and a mudslide sweep through the river. It's a good call. He sees a tribute floating, back up, as their bodies washes down from the waterfall and begin to slam into the rocks, the river now a rapid. 

Sakusa shakily drinks some water and glad that he made the decision to refill his water. He's not planning to go down now, not when he knows the river can easily turn into a rapid.

He spots a tree leaning against his, its branches heavy with nuts. The edible kind.

He shimmies as close to it as he can and spends the afternoon collecting them. The nuts are bland, waxy, but he doesn't complain, remembering the way he stuffed himself with bread and chocolate pudding in the one week he spent in the Capitol. 

Because he intends to wait it out, he decides to peel off a large chunk of nearby bark and get into the fibers, making a net. While his hands, work, his mind drifts.

Four down. Seven more to go. He wonders who were killed today. The flash flood would catch anyone near the rivers by surprise, which means that they probably hail from a district that doesn't swim or can't climb trees.

His mind flashes with a picture of the boy with the scruff on his chin, Eight. Probably him. He received one of the lowest scores in training, next to Twelve, shocking Oikawa when they watched the re-runs in between talking strategy and Sakusa eating his third dessert that night.

There's a rustle. Sakusa stops weaving and slowly darts his eyes up, keeping his body still. A tree snake? A wild monkey?

No one is across of him, so he pulls out his fruit knife and peers down, watching Nine and Eleven slide down a tree nearby to crouch next to the still swollen river. Both of them uncap their water pouch and stick the containers in before tipping it into their mouths.

Sakusa makes a face, wondering what kind of parasites and bacteria are swimming in it. If the river swept through the Cornucopia, it might have traces of animal dropping if it passed through the forest floor. It's interesting though, he notes, that the Districts responsible for grain and agriculture are teaming up with each other. He supposes that's sweet, if he has a heart.

Eleven is sharing nuts with Nine, pointing out to him the trees around them and chattering. Sakusa listens, because he might slip good information about potential nuts that are safe to eat, but the only thing he says is that if you tap a certain tree over there, an opaque white sap will come out and that's where the Capitol gets their supply of rubber.

Sakusa watches them until Eleven hops up into the trees like a monkey and helps Nine up. While Nine prefers to shimmy from thick branch to thick branch, giving the wet and moss-covered branches a wary look, Eleven flies between the canopies like a bird, even using the vines.

Sakusa stares. They're roughly the same height, but Eleven is at least twenty pounds lighter than him, even with the wiry muscles. He gives the vines snaking above a look, wondering how light he'd have to be for them to support his weight.

He's dangerous, Sakusa frowns. If he manages to crash into his sleeping quarters, Eleven could easily slit his throat in his sleep.

He knows what the net in his hands will become now. If someone comes towards him and triggers the trap, the net will hopefully scoop them up and away from him.

He wakes up not to the whoosh of his net trap, but to the creaking of ancient trees falling down.

It's still night time. Sakusa opens his eyes and automatically tugs on the knot encasing him to the branch he's on. He can see the wave of water coming towards him fast, the roots of smaller trees sticking out of the water, speeding along.

He'd been ready for a trick, so he only jams his feet into his boots, tugs his backpack on and starts scrambling for the higher branches, praying and praying that he can get enough height. He mourns the loss of his sleeping bag, watching the wave slam against the tree as his sleeping companion disappears.

He wishes his bag came with fingerless climbing gloves. His hands, slick with sweat, becomes a hindrance as he continues to reach for branch after branch. He comes across an empty nest of eggs and grabs several of them, tucking it into the side mesh pocket of his backpack.

Sakusa looks down and feels his anxiousness ebb away. The water is lowering. His sleeping platform is destroyed, washed away, so he jams himself on the branch he's currently on, still thick enough to bear his weight, and ties himself in. The moon is starting to fade, so it's almost morning, no use to go back to sleep.

The Gamemakers probably wanted to sweep him in the direction of the Cornucopia. The Capitol must be bored by now. He doesn't know what's been going on, but today's surprises will probably fall onto him since he's in a pretty good shape.

He eats the last of his smoked fish, sucking on the head before the sun fully rises and beams of sunlight are filtering past the upper canopy. Sakusa makes his way down slowly, one foot in front of the other, wiping his slick palms on his pants. When he reaches the bottom, he releases his arms away from the bark and sighs, spinning around and—

And stares at the completely empty river, the dried up waterfall. The only thing falling from the small cliffside is a set of vines, waving slightly in the humid breeze.

His water. Gone.

He hops down to the river side with his head spinning. Last night, he'd filled his water to the top and even threw a few nuts to the fish, watching them gobbling them up as if they're his pets. The river is bone dry now, the vegetation at the bottom wilted and brown. Even the mud at the bottom is dried up, turning into dust as he smears a bit between his fingers.

His water, gone. His food, gone. His number one source of confidence in the games, gone.

He wouldn't last more than two days without water. Already, going back to the Cornucopia and its watering hole will take a day's walk.

_"Don't leave your back open, Four!_ "

Sakusa knows it's too late, but he forces his knees to buckle, curling up into a ball as the hands that were supposed to go around his throat clutch at thin air.

He reaches for his machete, watching the sun climb as a flock of birds are spooked away, flapping and shrieking loudly. One rolls in the dry riverbed and gives him a wicked grin, confidently spinning two swords in his hands. Sakusa thinks his grin is cocky, like the rest of him, and that's all he has to think before he's blocking his attacks and spinning, hooking his boot against One's jaw and watching him go down.

One spits blood up and Sakusa recoils, feeling it splatter on his left cheek as he tries to pin him down.

"Why are you—" Sakusa kicks one sword away, hearing it bang along the rocks, "—So _obsessed_ with me?!"

One tries to push up, but Sakusa growls, pressing his forearm down and down onto his throat, watching One's ruddy face turn from anger and excitement into fear. His mouth is moving like the fishes in the river before it was drained by the Gamemakers. A single croak escapes and Sakusa knows the cameras are on them probably, throwing his entire weight onto his forearms.

Then One butts his forehead, hard, and the split second of Sakusa's concentration slipping is enough to flip the tables. He's the one being pinned, the sun so bright up in the sky that he can only slit his eyes and see One's bloody teeth and his flushed cheeks as he gulps air like a dying man.

Sakusa tries to throw him off using his hips. One teethers, nearly thrown off, but then there's a glint of something silver in his hand and Sakusa feels a white hot pain shoot down his arm, hearing the boy on top of him cackle.

He looks to his right, Akaashi's words echoing.

_"Those people you hate are going to be your only life line between a burn salve that will save your hands so you can eat dinner or starvation."_

There's a blade embedded right into his right hand, his dominant hand, _his sword hand_ , the black handle glinting in the sun. Sakusa tries to curl his fingers, assessing the damage but he nearly blacks out from a single twitch.

Something cold and sharp tilts his chin back onto One's face. It's his sword. He gives Sakusa a bloody grin, rasping, as one hand holds his weapon and his other forearm is pressing against Sakusa's throat, "Any last words, Four?"

Sakusa spots a clump of berries near the riverbed. The leaves are wilted slightly in the heat, but the bright red skin of the poisonous variety triggers something in his head. Berries. They're related to fruits.

His fruit knife is still in his right boot. Will he have enough time to take it out?

"What happens when you win?" He asks.

One is completely thrown off, blinking down at him like Sakusa had just asked him to dance a jig. To his credit, his arm remains steady and Sakusa can feel the prick of pain on his cheek, which means that the sword is cutting into his skin and he's bleeding.

"I become the victor," One replies, "What else?"

"But what happens after that?" Sakusa realizes the cameras are forced to stay on them now since there's a death scene coming right up. The Capitol will surely riot and complain if the death of a Career is cut away to something else happening in the arena, "What happens after you win and you complete the Victor Tour? You're forever shunted into reliving the Games over and over again, sending child after child into the arena until you die."

Even if the Capitol's microphones 'malfunction', One will still be here to hear it. Sakusa stares into his brown eyes, noticing his long lashes, a lock of gold hair sticking to his forehead in the humid afternoon.

One's voice is cocky but Sakusa can see the trouble behind his eyes, "Yeah, so? I have the title of Victor, I bring food and pride to my district."

"Will it be worth the nightmares?" Sakusa asks, remembering the way after Oikawa came back home, how he withdrew into himself and can be seen sitting on the beaches drinking something out of a bottle. The first week he settled back home, Sakusa woke up in the middle of the night as lights from the Victor's Village turn on, someone's shrieks echoing in the night, too loud to be drowned out by the waves, "Will it be worth killing everyone in this arena, to relive this exact moment over and over again, to have this hanging over your conscious? Will all the glory and money in the world be worth being their slaves?"

One stares at him, at a loss for words.

"I do have last words I guess," Sakusa says, "I want you to remember this moment until the day you die."

Then with his left hand, he pulls out the knife in his right hand and slashes across One's eyes, creating a horizontal line that immediately blooms with blood.

One bellows, rearing back. Sakusa kicks him down but immediately feels fuzzy, looking at the red on the rocks and wondering if that's all from him. He stumbles to the swords and kicks them far, far away, grabbing his machete when there's a familiar rumble that makes the hair at the back of his neck rise.

A wall of water appears.

Sakusa feels very woozy. He looks down at his right hand and sees a lump the size of a plum swelling.

Then he looks at the black dagger on the rocks, a few feet away from where One is crying out tears and blood, trying to scramble into the bushes. The blade is crimson with blood but as his vision doubles and fades and comes back into focus again, there's a white layer of powder on the curve.

Oh.

Some sort of poison.

He looks back at the approaching wall of water. This must be his price for talking treacherous ideas, a way of the Gamemakers to finally get deliver justice on behalf of the President and the Peacekeepers in his district. He sighs, thinking about summers cliff diving with Motoya and eating bread dipped in chocolate pudding as his eyelids grow unbelievably heavy, closing them.

Then Sakusa blacks out, the wall of water hitting him square in the chest.

He dreams of his fears. Sharks dragging him below the surface, Komori getting reaped again next year and this time no one will be able to protect him, his sister turning into a Victor and becoming his mentor and being forced to watch him die, delivering him to death's door personally, Kuroo Tetsurou's surgically modified amber eyes crinkling in laughter as Sakusa stands on stage naked, on a giant seashell, as the crowd chants for him to reveal his secrets.

When he comes to, he's in a cave. There's not much light here, so it's either night time or there's no cracks in the stone that allow sunlight in. He reassesses his limbs, slightly surprised he's alive.

Left leg present, right leg present. His boots are missing. His backpack is also missing, but there's something soft beneath his head. Both arms are present. His torso is slightly sore and he's hungry, but asides from that, it's not too bad and he opens his eyes fully.

He sits up and turns his head left and right. He seems to be in a cave. To his left is a tunnel and to his right is a wall. There's something ribbiting nearby and Sakusa curls his hands by reflex when he lets out a hiss of pain and feels it.

There's something on his hands. It's...stringy and dried. It crumbles when he fiddles with it, applied right on the knife wound.

"Oh good you're awake."

Sakusa rolls up into a crouch by reflex, left hand curled into a fist held in front of him as his right hand dangles uselessly. The owner of the voice is holding a torchlight, a stick of wood with a clump of dried bark balled up and tied with vines.

It's Eleven, the one who swings from tree to tree and can climb them like a gecko. Sakusa curls his mouth up in distrust, "What do you want with me?"

Did he drag him here to kill him in a cave? Is Eleven a tribute that went crazy, like one of the tributes in the past who cannibalized his kills and had to be killed off by the Capitol? Except he doesn't look crazy. His dark hair is matted with sweat (Sakusa's sure he looks roughly the same— there's no soaps out here in the arena), he's hunched over with weariness but his eyes are aren't mad.

Eleven reaches inside his pant pocket. Sakusa twitches, ready to kick out with his legs, but Eleven only offers him a strange fruit, round, the smooth skin pale yellow, like sand. 

Sakusa's stomach decides that it's time to growl. He continues to glare at Eleven, watching him wedge the torch into a natural crevice in the tunnel and grabbing another fruit out of his pocket. He bites into it, chewing and waving the fruit in front of Sakusa.

Sakusa waits until the boy has swallowed it before he plucks it off his hands and ravenously tears into it. It's juicy, so incredibly juicy it runs down his mouth and chin. Sakusa chases after every drop, licking them off his left hand and swallowing the crisp flesh until all that's left is the core and seeds.

"Where I come from, they're called sand pears," Eleven says, burrowing into his pockets as Sakusa gives him his full attention. He pulls out a variety of fruits Sakusa's familiar with and ones he hasn't seen before. He spots a mango the size of a fist, the skin green and mottled with patches of yellow and orange, a handful of red balls covered in spikes, four dark purple things that look like tiny pumpkins and an oblong mango-like fruit the size of his palm.

He scooches next to Sakusa, sitting down in a crisscross as Sakusa jerks back, still jumpy, "Here, eat something, you must be hungry."

Sakusa doesn't fight back, he _is_ hungry and he watches warily as the boy draws out a knife from his rain jacket. The mango, of course, is recognizable. He peels the skin away and using his thumb and hands, cuts slivers of the flesh, handing it out to Sakusa.

Sakusa really doesn't want to touch food with his dirty hands, but he also doesn't want the boy to feed him like that so he pinches the mango with his thumb and forefinger. 

Then he stares at Eleven, watching him until Eleven sighs and cuts off a section and chews it, "See? I'm not dead. It's not poisonous."

Sakusa nibbles the flesh, the sweetness spreading over his tongue. It's one of the best mangoes he's ever had in his life, the flesh plump and not mush like the ones he sometimes has when Auntie brings him over. He waits for his share as Eleven cuts more slivers, feeding him slowly.

"How long was I out?" Sakusa asks, deciding that the boy is safe, for now. The mango isn't that big so he's not surprised when he sees the pit, seeing it get tossed to the side as the boy starts on the red balls of spikes.

"Nearly the entire day. The anthem should be playing soon. Here, we only grow these for the Capitol so you've probably never seen it, but it's called rambutan."

The fruit, now that the red shell is peeled off, taste sweet, not as sweet as the mango. It reminds Sakusa of grapes. He spits out the seed, "How did you find me?"

The boy tells him. The river dried up, then suddenly around midday, where he was down by the banks trying to harvest taro and perhaps take a shot at whacking palm trees for whatever a heart of palm is, the water reappeared. After the initial flow ebbed and the river has returned, albeit full of branches and brown water, Sakusa and One apparently floated by on their backs. The boy went over to see One first, confirmed he was dead and moved onto him and was surprised he hadn't drowned.

"I checked for water in your lungs like the trainers taught us to. And then I brought you back here," Eleven gestures to the tunnel and cave, "Tended to your tracker jacker wound and made sure your boots are dry."

There are two things on Sakusa's mind but first he asks, "Boots?"

The boy vanishes, going to the end of the tunnel. When he comes back, Sakusa grabs his boots and finds that they're dry and clean. His number one fear, aside from getting killed and having bugs crawl into his ears when he's asleep, had been getting foot fungus from wet socks.

"Thank you," He mumbles, "What's a tracker jacker?"

The boy hands him a slice of fruit from the small purple pumpkin thing. Apparently it's called a mangosteen, "Does your district not have it? It's everywhere in Eleven. They're genetically engineered wasps. The venom is a hallucinogen, you were twitching and mumbling things when I fished you out," He points to the dried gunk on Sakusa's right hand, "I chewed up some leaves to draw the venom out."

"Oh," The boy happily nods and hums, passing off another mangosteen over. Sakusa doesn't quite know what to say, "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

He looks around, "Where's your friend?" How come he hasn't seen Nine?

Eleven stops peeling the skin of the last fruit. Sakusa understands immediately, looking at the sudden pinch at his face, "He...we were foraging for food in the morning and he got killed by the Careers."

"I'm sorry."

Eleven passes him a slice of the orange fruit after he'd halved it and scrape some black seeds out, "It's okay. I kinda...expected that it wouldn't last anyway. Try the papaya, you don't know what it is, right?"

Sakusa doesn't. He lets Eleven talk, filling in the silences between them as he rattles off facts about the fruit, how it's grown, how it germinates, how his District grows it, the fact that they actually cook it with curry if there's an overabundance of imperfect ones they can't ship to the Capitol.

"One nice thing about this is I can actually eat the fruits that go directly to the Capitol," Eleven smiles. Sakusa's stomach swoops, his fingers now sticky, "It's really interesting how they design the arena really. I can't think of how many bees and birds they'd needed for them to pollinate so there's this much fruit around."

His stomach, which had been heavy with fruits and digesting, burns.

Their districts are very familiar. Both supply the Capitol with food— he supplies them with fish and anything that comes from the sea, Eleven supplies grains, milk, fruits, vegetables— and both cannot eat what they catch or else risk punishment from the Peacekeepers.

"Why did you save me?" Sakusa asks.

"I was hoping we could be allies. You're...strong, you could do without me yeah, but if the river goes again," Eleven says. Sakusa can tell he's been rehearsing this speech in his head as he stumbles through it, "If it dries up, your source of food and water disappear. I know how to forage, I can show you which root vegetables are safe to eat, how to steal eggs from nests, how to find water that's not in rivers."

He thinks about his nightmare, Kuroo grinning at him manically and prying open his shell, asking him for his secrets. The Capitol must be wondering why he refused to team up with the Careers, surviving by his lonesome and why no one dared to volunteer for Komori.

And next he thinks about the Capitol, how the purpose of the Hunger Games is an intimidation tactic and a reminder that they're all slaves and serve to bring food, water, heat, electricity, clothes and entertainment to the lucky ones.

"You must know that I can kill you in your sleep," Sakusa tells him, watching the fire flicker across his face. His bangs hangs down his forehead, "Even if my right hand is injured."

"Yeah," Eleven gives him a cheeky smile, "But you won't. You'll properly repay your debt to me first like the way you went through all the non-weapons station in a clockwise fashion, right?"

For some reason, Sakusa finds this funny. He lets out a raspy chuckle and agrees to be allies for now. Eleven grins at him and sprints off somewhere, bringing his backpack from where he'd been drying it outside. Together, they go over the items between them. Sakusa has no weapons now after they were washed away in the flood, but everything in his backpack except the eggs survived. Eleven has a knife and a small fanny pouch that holds a bottle of water purifying pills and a fire striker.

And from Nine, they have his water bottle, apparently he only managed to snag this from the ground before running for the forest.

Eleven finishes zipping up his new backpack, the second, smaller one Sakusa had stuffed inside his main one and they hear the familiar blare of trumpets.

He leads Sakusa through the tunnels until the tunnels lead down and Sakusa sees the mouth of the cave, half hidden by vines and ancient roots of trees. Several bats blink curiously at them as they listen to the end of the anthem and see Nine's and One's picture being broadcasted up.

"Only two," Sakusa sighs.

"Is that your plan this entire time?" Eleven asks. They didn't bring the torch with them but Sakusa climbs the incline of the tunnel easily and within seconds, they're back to where he'd slept the entire day, the fire merrily throwing their faces with golden light. "Hide and hope for the best?"

"Yes, no use wasting my energy hunting down people," He sees that the soft thing under his head was his rolled up poncho. The cavern is big enough to home both of them but he doesn't want to entirely trust Eleven, "Anyway, I'll take first watch."

Eleven doesn't have a problem with it, shrugging, "Sure, but let me change your leaves first."

Sakusa sits at the end of the tunnel right before the drop near the mouth. As he takes first watch, he uses the olive rope to weave a net, having to feed one more mouth and wondering what his family at home thinks, what Akaashi and Oikawa thinks. It's hard to do with his right hand out of commission and his progress is sloppy and slow, but he makes do with what he has.

He's just finishing knotting the net and folding it into a square when there's a weird, electronic chime coming from outside. Sakusa snaps his head up, jamming his boots on and slowly peers out of the cave. A silver container with a parachute tinkles nearby, wedged between the rock wall.

The music stops the moment his fingers touches the container. He eagerly opens it— his first present— hoping that it's medicine for his hand and seeing Oikawa's neat script on a slip of paper stuck to the container.

He squints in the moonlight.

_Finally, an angle I can work with. OT._

He unscrews the lid and finds two things. The first is a small pot of something watery, like a gel. There's only a pea-sized amount in the bottom. It's sharp, herbaceous smell makes him think this is medicine and not a snack. Most likely for his hand, then.

The second is a flimsy glove like material of his t-shirt, sweat wick and probably knitted to dissuade bacteria from growing. It clicks then— he'd watched Oikawa's games so many times he's annoyed he didn't recognize this at first sight. It's a brace, loose at first, but it'll mold to the shape of his hand after a few seconds and prevent his bones from shifting as his body naturally heals. Oikawa received one as a gift after injuring his knee during his Games.

_"Those people you hate are going to be your only life line between a burn salve that will save your hands so you can eat dinner or starvation."_

His eyes swims in angry tears.

He doesn't want this present. He wants to burn it and set it on fire, but he knows that it'll be very hard once first light hits to fish. And if he can't climb trees, he's as good as dead if the Gamemakers decides to make morning floods their new routine. Only four days have passed and only six tributes dead. It's an all-time low.

He doesn't want affection from the hand that whips him, but he can't deny that this is a very expensive gift that will potentially save his life. Oikawa's probably in the building next to the Arena, rubbing elbows with the Capitol's most wealthy as he tries to convince people to put their trust on him. Sakusa knew he's a difficult tribute. He wonders what angle Oikawa had been playing at while he hid from cameras and sipped water.

"Thank you," He says to the bats, knowing that one of them has the red eyes of a recording camera. The real ones squeak at him as he retreats back into the cave, head heavy with thoughts.

Breakfast is some nuts for him. Eleven offers him some bugs, chirping about protein, but Sakusa tried one, felt exactly how many legs there are in his mouth and decided that he's fine with going hungry until he catches some fish for both of them. 

"Here! These are my favorites, silk worm pupas! Try, try, they're good for you!"

Sakusa refuses and then tells Eleven he's going to stab him where it hurts if he keeps trying to wave insects in his direction.

Before they leave the cave, Sakusa applies all of the herby gel on his wound and they both watch in wonder as the gloves shrink to mold to his hand. He flexes it, feeling pain shoot down his arm, but it feels marginally better— stronger too, he can weave again, he's sure.

He probably ruined his right hand forever though, the blade must have severed several nerves, but Eleven doesn't need to help him much as they squeeze out of the walls since the material of the brace is almost sticky, allowing Sakusa to dangle like he's holding himself up.

"Where exactly are we in relation to the Cornucopia?"

Eleven says they're on the opposite side of where Sakusa had been inhabiting. Apparently, this half of the forest is filled with natural caves and rocks, the path sloping down to the center where the clearing is. Sakusa asks about landslides and Eleven says he does feel tremors sometimes, but only minor ones have happened, and he always picks caves in which he can escape quickly.

"Who else is still alive?"

"Two and Three, Five and Ten."

"Do you know if Five and Ten are together?"

"Not sure, I haven't seen many people. The Careers are working together though, I think they're trying to hunt the other two down."

"Of course they are, that's what they always do," Sakusa huffily says.

"Wait before we go," Eleven points to a collection of vines, "That's how I've been getting my water."

Sakusa blinks, "They're not like moss where you can squeeze it out, right?"

Eleven shakes his head. He pulls out his knife and uses the handle to tap the larger ones. When Sakusa hears a hollow thunk, Eleven makes a little shallow slit in the flesh, watching a drop of something clear form before it starts dripping, "Be careful though. If it's clear, then you're good to go, but if it's white or cloudy, you should stay away."

"Do you need to purify it?"

"I do, just in case."

With no weapon, Sakusa's only hope is his fruit knife and a net. He keeps a mental note of Eleven today, he looks healthy, aside from the obvious thinness to his body that's not present on Sakusa. It's strange, District 11's boy tributes are usually on the stockier side so he wonders why Eleven look so underfed compared to the previous ones. They make small talk, discussing about their respective homes while they walk to the river since District 4 and 11 are neighbors.

Eleven is amazed at the concept of the open sea, "Wow! And it goes deeper? How deep?"

Sakusa shrugs, "It must stop, but it's endless for us. And we're trapped anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"There's a line of buoys when you get far out enough and Peacekeepers on ships. I'm sure if any of us tries to escape, we'll be killed," The buoys is thankfully far enough that everyone in District 4 brings a decent sized haul of fish every morning, but Sakusa does go to the edge sometimes and wonders about the great beyond, the only thing grounding him is the net in his hands.

Eleven is quiet, "I'd like to see that in another life."

Then he starts telling Sakusa about the clouds and skies. When he was younger and still small enough to pick the highest hanging fruits, he would waste a couple of minutes sitting on the top most branches and steal back the minutes they all dedicate to the Capitol and watch shapes float past.

In unison, they look up at the thick cloud of grey hinting of a potential rainstorm, no sight of clear blue skies or the open ocean, just the heavy rainclouds and endless canopies of trees trapping them in.

By afternoon, Eleven has him in a tree, pointing out nuts that are edible, the ones Sakusa forgot in his three day of blind panic memorization. They caught a giant fish that weighs like a small child. The flesh, once cooked, is sweet and almost fluffy. Sakusa lets out a mumble about how it would taste better with the seafood sauce his District has and Eleven chirps that it was his first time having fish that good.

"Really? First time?" He knew other goods from other Districts are also sold with a premium, albeit slightly cheaper than the price of their own catches, but he wonders what kind of fish Eleven had been eating, "Did they spoil or something? We fish early at dawn and usually the hovercraft and trains leave by seven. There's another catch in the noon from the divers and that's when the shellfish are delivered."

"Oh, I have two younger sisters. It's kinda obvious with the poorer districts but we don't have enough to eat so I usually give my share to them too."

Sakusa stares at Eleven's profile. The reaping only showed him hugging his brother, Sakusa didn't know he had sisters, swallowing a ball in this throat down as he thinks about Hiromi, glad that she never had gotten picked, "How old are they?"

"Twelve and eight. I'm glad they're not chosen this year," Eleven gives a sad laugh, "But it must be frustrating for your district, right?"

Sakusa shrugs, "I personally think this entire game is a trap. And even if you win, you're still not free because now you're forced to go to the Capitol year after year to coach the next group of kids from your district. It's never ending."

Eleven looks him with the same expression One gave him, moments before Sakusa slashed his eyes and deprived him of sight. Isn't it so obvious, he wants to announce, isn't it so obvious that's what's going to happen when one of them comes out of this alive?

"But still, you want that future, don't you?" Eleven asks softly, climbing to his branch and reaching for a cluster of nuts he missed, "For your cousin. And your sister."

Sakusa sees Komori's green eyes in Eleven's face, he sees his sister's tiredness in him too, as does the planks of wood from his mother's destroyed boat and the news of a their seafood drying up.

He nods, "I promised to come back."

Eleven smiles. It's tinged with sadness. Sakusa probably knows what's running through his head, that when it comes down to it, he has nothing in his disposal to fight the Careers, all who have been trained since young, watching past Games and analyzing each victor, learning how to use their respective weapon of choice until it became second nature.

Eleven's eyes aren't the same shade of the unnatural amber ones Kuroo has, nor something as dark like One's. It's rich and warm, a lighter shade of brown, like the honey from Eleven's own district.

Sakusa tilts his head, moving slowly as Eleven's eyes widen even further, before a cloud of pink blooms across his face and a sunbeam somehow makes its way past the giant rainclouds threatening to dump water on them, hitting the right side of his profile.

Sakusa threads his right hand, the one that's out of commission, along Eleven's cheekbones, pulling him in as he closes the distance in a kiss. The sun is bright on his eyelids and he remembers, out of the haze of names thrown around the Training Center, that Eleven's name is Miya Atsumu.

Kuroo is famous for making up nicknames the Capitol uses for their darling victors. Oikawa, once he held his trident in the ring and successfully killed the remaining tributes at the age of sixteen, has been compared to the ancient gods of wisdom and beauty, to the seafoam that lines the shores of their District, like the seafoam that birthed Aphrodite.

Sakusa knows he remained quiet and slightly tart during his interviews, but kissing Atsumu is the same as giving Oikawa a free reign in dressing him up. The mysterious, brooding tribute from District 4, saved from death's clutches by the volunteer from District 11, a forbidden love story blooming in the rainforest arena when he inevitably fell for his savior.

He's taking first watch, back in the same cave where he woke up, when the familiar tinkle of music alerts him.

He doesn't know what made him lean forward to kiss the person who he owes his life to. Perhaps it was the fact that they both volunteered, perhaps it's the way he sees Komori's resigned shoulders in Atsumu, remembering the wry smile on his cousin's face when District 4's victors wheeled away the girls' reaping ball. Maybe it's the fact that Komori and his twin are the same age, maybe it's the fact that he and Atsumu have sisters, maybe it's the fact that they have similar districts.

Maybe it's the fact that Sakusa wants him to see him hug his brother again.

He runs his left hand through his hair and sighs. He shouldn't be thinking about this now. To win is to push aside unhelpful and unwanted thoughts.

The electronic chime stops as he touches the gift. It reflects the silver of the moon, a set of throwing knives with the meanest edge Sakusa has ever seen. Oikawa must have realized that he can't use a harpoon or trident anymore since he only has his left hand to throw now, but knives are smaller and he should be able to get used to them quicker.

_You're welcome. OT._ Sakusa can hear Oikawa sniffing at him in his head, nose probably turned up. He gives the knives a grin, pocketing them and deciding that he'll start practicing in the cave while Atsumu sleeps soundlessly.

There were no cannons yesterday thanks to his trick, so entering Day 6 Sakusa is wary. Atsumu swings and hops from tree to tree and showers him with rambutan, something he found out Sakusa liked very much but didn't show.

"We have something similar," A toucan with red eyes is blinking at them, perched on another tree. Sakusa watches Atsumu's hand peel the leathery skin away, knowing now that the spikes are actually like hair and doesn't do anything, "A sea creature. It's called the sea urchin, about the size of a clenched fist."

"I don't think I've ever seen it in our markets. Is it sweet?"

He frowns, how would he explain the taste of sea urchin to Atsumu, who gives away the fish he eats to his younger sisters, "It's...savory? Kind of sweet? Salty, like the sea too."

Atsumu looks confused, Sakusa doesn't blame him, "Interesting," Atsumu pops three naked rambutans into his mouth, chewing before his face splits into a happy grin, teeth sparkling in the sun the Gamemakers have so coincidentally shined on them, "Kind of like you, Sakusa. Salty and spiky, but you can be sweet too."

To his horror, Sakusa feels his cheeks heat and turns away to hide his face from the toucan, hearing Atsumu laugh quietly so they remain safe in the branches of the canopies.

They speak about weapons for a while.

"If you could get anything, what would you get?"

Atsumu so far seems very nonthreatening. Sakusa doesn't know if he intends to stab him in the back or if he's acting on his mentor's instructions on hiding, but his eyes glistens coldly, before he confidently states his weapon of choice.

"If I could get my hands on a dual machetes, that'd be what I pick. An axe works too."

The arena is his home, Sakusa realizes. If the Careers take care of themselves, Atsumu could very well be an unexpected under dog. He recognizes which plants are medicinal and which ones are poisonous, knows the flora and fauna, can find water without relying on the river like Sakusa is, has a smart enough head to pick caves that are easy to escape from and won't ever need to step on the ground if it weren't for Sakusa not being comfortable swinging from tree to tree.

Atsumu gives him a cool look that's reminiscent of the calculating eyes of the Career packs. Sakusa swallows, before the happy smile is back and Atsumu leans in to peck his mouth. Their lips are dry, but it sends thrills down his head, "Don't need to look so scared."

"You could be a victor," Sakusa says, because he's not one to lie, "I'm serious."

"Nah, everyone has more fighting experience than me," Atsumu shrugs.

"No," He pushes. This is what he also hates about the Games, Tendou, the announcer and who is Kuroo's tag team partner when it comes to adding commentary for the Capitol, always downplays and mocks the tributes of the lesser districts. Sakusa hadn't bothered watching the interviews asides from finding out the training scores but he now wishes he has, almost glaring at Atsumu, "I'm telling you, you could really make it. You have the brains, you have the skills, you just need the right weapon."

Atsumu blinks, "So do you."

Sakusa waves his right hand, "Not with my hand like this. In a fight, my best chance would be hand to hand combat. But if we can get you some machetes from the Cornucopia...."

He looks at the toucan directly in the eye, knowing that Oikawa is probably grinning at the screen with a deathly smile, provoked. He has a feeling Oikawa is just going to turn his nose up and say something along him being mysterious, snarky _and_ spoiled if Kuroo drags him away from the control room for a mini interview.

"Hey," Atsumu calls out for him. Sakusa turns, watching him offer the last rambutan, "Tell me about the sea. How long can you hold your breath for?"

Sakusa turns away and swallows, picking a story he won't mind parting with, a piece of him willingly offered up to the Capitol.

The Capitol must love them.

Parachutes after parachutes some with each story they exchange. First comes a crescent shaped roll Sakusa vaguely remembers seeing in the Training Center. It's surprisingly stretchy ("Made out of rice flour!") and filled with nuts and pounded red bean that Sakusa knows is loaded with sugar. It's a better version of the bread from 11 supposedly, the normal appearance is supposed to be the dark, tough stuff made out of tesserae flour.

Next is another fish shaped loaf and a container of scallops, still hot, cooked in butter and herbs. Sakusa blinks the tears out of his eyes because he knows Oikawa has never seen him eat scallops and calls Atsumu over from where he's rinsing off in the river.

Atsumu gasps, chewing it. There's several tan lines on his bare skin. He doesn't seem to be self-conscious, a rivulet of water running down his jaw, "It's so...soft? Like the strawberry marshmallows in the Training Center."

Sakusa had eaten marshmallow only once, on New Year's when his father brought them some candy when he was six and Hiromi was eight. 

The Capitol seems to love Atsumu's reactions and when the sun sinks down and they retreat to their cave with nuts, a grilled fish to share and some more rambutans, Atsumu runs for the entrance when he hears the chime.

He comes back with a giant box, "What. The. Hell."

Sakusa also mumbles a note of disbelief, opening the lid and seeing a spread of the richest District 4 meals. A portion of the box has been sectioned off, where several mussels and oysters have been shucked with a few slices of lemons nearby, sitting on ice. Next to it are some of the green melons Sakusa had on the train to the Capitol, except they're shaped like round balls and are presented on top of slivers of mangoes and ruby red cherries in a glass bowl.

"No note?" Oikawa had stopped giving them notes since the fish bread and scallops. Sakusa takes that as a sign that they're entertaining enough.

Atsumu inhales when he sees several triangles of rice. Sakusa blinks down; they're what the fishermen eat in his home district if they don't want to eat hot, thin noodles before shucking off their shirts off and diving for shells in the afternoon. 

"Like us," Sakusa holds up one, feeling the sturdy weight of it, wondering what the filling is inside, "Rice and fillings from your district and dried seaweed from mine."

They tear into the food— Sakusa allows Atsumu to have all the oysters, telling him that he prefers things cooked— watching Atsumu's eyes grow large when he pops a thumb sized piece of rice with a marbled sliver of fatty tuna into his mouth.

"This is my favorite things from the Training Center," Atsumu sniffles. Sakusa laughs freely in their cave, watching the firelight they jammed into the crevice wall highlight his cheekbones. "I would always order some when they're not on the table."

"I would kill for your fruits."

"I would kill for your _seafood_ ," Atsumu says, shoveling more sushi into his mouth, "Do you guys eat like this every day?"

Sakusa snorts, knowing that he's probably now off screen, about to rip the Capitol apart, "Of course not. The good stuff is sent to the Capitol for those rich weaklings, I bet none of them can throw a knife straight or gut a fish."

"I don't think they even know where half their food comes from," Atsumu says with a twinkle in his eyes, "I bet they just think it comes with a push of a button from yonder."

"Obviously. I'm sure they don't know how boil water," He then answers Atsumu's question, "And we don't eat like this every day. Usually it's some kind of stew unless you're more well off, we get lots of sunshine so people have home yards to plant things in, mostly potatoes or root vegetables. We harvest the seaweed and add that in too, it's high in nutrients."

Atsumu lowers the onigiri he has around his hands. He's bitten the top off, revealing a bed of fish eggs with some traces of cream sauce around it. Mayonnaise. 

"...Dried seaweed's the only thing we could afford back at home from your district. That or really, really old fish that's about to go bad," Atsumu puts pressure on the one he's holding, causing the seaweed to crinkle, "Samu would always make them after Ma couldn't anymore."

Samu must be his twin, the one that had been called originally from the reaping ball, the one who has his bangs swooped in the opposite direction. It's the first time Atsumu voluntarily mentioned the person he protected. Sakusa tries to remember if the cameras captured his mother, not wanting to probe further, but also curious.

"This is my favorite."

"The plum one?" Atsumu frowns. Sakusa nods, tearing into it, "How come?"

"Fruits are expensive in Four and I don't know," He shrugs, "The sea tastes the same. Salty. Complicated. Umeboshi is sour and tart, it offsets the richness of a lot of our foods, like the buttered scallops and sea urchin."

Atsumu gives him a smile again, "The Capitol thinks you're mysterious you know, all silent and only giving a few quips. But you're really simple aren't you?"

Sakusa opens his mouth to snarl something rude at him when Atsumu follows it up with a somber, "You just want to go home."

_You just want to go home._

_We're playing lovers so we can go home._

Sakusa opens his mouth to say something when Atsumu leans forward, his eyes kind in the firelight, to kiss the corner of his mouth. When he pulls away, a grain of rice disappears into his mouth.

They don't eat all of the onigiri but anything that will spoil fast is eaten. They spread the poncho on the ground again and unlike the past two nights where they took turns sleeping in shifts, Atsumu pats his rolled up raincoat he's using as a pillow, an invitation.

Sakusa shouldn't. The right thing to do is practice with his knives because this is the Hunger Games and the enemy is the Capitol, but he's warm and full for the first time since stepping into the arena and his heart aches at seeing his district's food, a reminder of home.

He doesn't fully sleep, nerves too keyed up to listen for the rumble of flood water or an earthquake, but the Gamemakers must think they've gotten enough content because their night is peaceful and with Atsumu's wrapped around him, his lids falls shut.

When he wakes, the tiniest bit of sunlight manages to filter through a crack in the wall. By the strength it must be noon, but Sakusa rubs sleep out of his eyes and is miraculously seeing another day, turning around to find Atsumu by his side. His hair, as dark as the shirt on both of them, splays on his raincoat.

His eyes are hazy. Sakusa is reminded how once, the candy shop in his town demonstrated something to the children. The syrup was poured over a block of ice and they watched in delight as crystal patterns formed on the surface before the candy maker shaped it into a log and passed it around.

Right. That was the year Oikawa won. They'd gotten maple syrup on that particular Parcel Day among the usual delivery of rice, oil, soaps and butter. It's the same shade— Atsumu's eyes and the candy that made Sakusa's childhood so sweet.

Sakusa doesn't know why he's reliving so many childhood memories that he never cared about. He wanted to go into the games with a clear head, only aiming to kill and survive.

The arena is no place for memories.

"Morning lover," Atsumu softly whispers, brushing back his short bangs.

Trouble appears in the form of a fever.

Atsumu lies on the poncho spread on the floor, shivering and sweating while Sakusa piles both of their rain jackets on top of him. It's raining outside and the river is swelling, so he's glad they're on the upper half of the arena with higher ground.

Sakusa had given him some fever reducers from his little first aid kit, but it doesn't seem to be working. Atsumu's eyes are foggy and he's mumbling nonsensical things about harvest and berries. His skin is clammy but his forehead is burning.

"Atsumu," Sakusa shakes his shoulders gently, "Are there any plants that could relieve the fever?"

His lips are cracked and pale, "...Ran outta pills?" 

"We will soon," He confesses. Half the day has gone by and the rain isn't letting up. The clearing the Cornucopia is in is half submerged in water the last time Sakusa went outside and scaled a tree just to see what's going on. 

Atsumu slurs something. Sakusa asks him to repeat it before nodding and promising he'll be back soon, pressing a bottle of water in his hands.

He puts on his rain poncho over his backpack, ties the strings properly behind his chin and tucks his knives up his sleeves before wiggling out of the cave and immediately getting soaked. 

Visibility is poor. The rain droplets are huge and hurt his head, so the first chance he gets, he takes shelter beneath a giant palm tree to wipe the water away from his face. While he waits, he realizes something.

It's so loud with the water bouncing off the leaves that he won't be able to hear someone sneaking up on him.

Sakusa wiggles one knife out onto his left hand, wary and moving down the valley to get to a very familiar area for the thing Atsumu asked for. He slides down to the edge of the clearing, seeing the golden horn miserably wet in the distance, and enters the forest, where the rain is a little more bearable with the upper canopies blocking it.

Then he sees it, the tree of his nightmares, a giant trunk covered in purple-black quills long enough to slice through his hands.

Atsumu said the tree's bark is a painkiller. Sakusa checks on his surroundings before stabbing his knife into the quills and hacking them off, revealing the sandy colored inner bark and scraping a good amount into his hands. He thinking of maybe getting some nuts on the hike home before spinning around and seeing Two and Three leaning against a giant root, smiling at him.

"Are you hurt, Four? We haven't seen you since Terushima ran off and died on Day 4."

"That's none of your business," Sakusa spits, his heart in his throat. They must have been hiding in the bushes and cloaked in leaves since Two is brushing away from palm fronds from where it's sticking to his jacket. 

Two has a set of dual machetes. Three has a set of bows and arrows and a sword with a wicked, curved edge— scimitar. Sakusa only has a handful of bark and his throwing knives.

The odds don't look so great. They're both staring at each other, calculating the chances. Three's bow is currently resting across his torso, his arrows behind him. He'll be slow to use that, since he has to pull the frame over his head and load, but his scimitar is right there.

Two's machetes are already in his hands. Sakusa can hear the gurgle of the overflowing river nearby, wondering if it's in his best chances to plunge deep into his element and taunt them in. Or if he could run into the river and pull out his net before an arrow lands in his back.

He wishes he has a harpoon. Anything long distance. 

"Nice brace over there."

"Can't say the same about you," Sakusa tilts his chin arrogantly at the red gash on Two's leg, "What's wrong? Your sponsors didn't deem you worthy enough of some medicine?"

Two grimaces, "Guessing you've had lots of sponsors?"

Sakusa checks his fingernails. There's one area in which the poorer districts have an upper hand in the Careers, "Yeah, had some shellfish sent in on a bed of ice with lemon wedges. I recommend the Kumamoto oysters if you like light brine and something nutty."

Two looks so mad he looks ready to kill and for good reasons. The longer the games go on, the more expensive gifts are. Two is probably thinking about the cost of his oyster dinner versus a potential medicine for his leg.

Sakusa chooses this to start sprinting for the river, hearing yells behind him as they're caught off guard. 

Sakusa dances past the spiny, barbed barks, whacking palms aside so he can see in front of him before he spots a giant curtain of moss up ahead. He ducks under it and bends one of the lower branches of a rubber tree, waiting and waiting until he hears footsteps coming closer before releasing the tree limb and hearing it whack two faces.

" _Motherf!_ — FOUR!"

Three brushes the hanging moss away and Sakusa throws the bark in his hands into Three's face, watching him squeeze his eyes shut, nearly running into the river as he hands flies to his face to wipe it off.

Sakusa knows he has one chance to do this right, and he sprints for Three, jumping and kicking him into the river.

Three is immediately swept away. his voice a far distant cry. Sakusa sucks in a breath before he feels hands around his throat. Two.

"You fucking piece of shit!"

_Calm, calm_ , Sakusa orders his brain as raindrops enter his eyes. This is just like diving. He doesn't need air for a bit, swinging his left arm down and feeling one of his knives fall into place. Two laughs, because his headlock is good enough that Sakusa's arm can't get him, "How does it feel to be a fish out of water, Four?"

Sakusa steels himself and rams is head back, connecting with Two's face. Their skulls crash into each other's. It might not be the best move, but Sakusa blinks the stars away from his eyes and sucks in deep inhales of air, sliding into a defensive position with his right hand closer to his body, stumbling away to put distance.

Two's nose is bleeding, blood mixing in with the rain. There's blood on his mouth when he smiles reminiscent of Terushima. A cannon goes off and Two's face twists, "Konoha."

"It's your cannon they'll fire next."

"That a threat?"

"A promise," Sakusa says, feeling the ties of his poncho loosen. His rain jacket is immediately soaked and it's a struggle to raise his head up with how much water is pouring down. The river has formed rapids and he knows that one misstep could cost him his life and there won't be Atsumu this time around to fish him out.

Two snarls, lunging forward with both of his swords as Sakusa spins, using his backpack as a shield and missing narrowly from being skewered. He leaps back, watching Two tug his weapons out and striking forward. It's all Sakusa can do, ducking and avoiding and making sure he's not going into the river, where the water is now lapping up near them.

He flings out some of his knives and watches as two of them cut Two's forehead, blood getting in his eyes as he makes a startled noise. Sakusa steps in as Two tries to blink the blood out of his eyes and using his poncho, ties Two's arms together, kicks his machetes out and attempts to throw him into the river.

He slips on some slippery rocks and Two struggles, trying to rip his arms out of the tie as Sakusa blinks away the dark spots that appeared in his eyes. 

A great rumble. The back of Sakusa's neck is cold with a chill as he and Two stop moving, staring at each other's eyes. It's a familiar sound to both of them by now.

"No!" Two struggles, getting to his knees as Sakusa crabwalks backward and away from the swelling riverbank, grabbing the machetes and his backpack. Two's injured leg buckles as his tears runs down red on his cheeks, " _No!_ Please, please, someone, anyone! Help!"

Sakusa wastes no time, stumbling away clutching his head and his weapon, scaling a tree and getting up high enough before the flood that nearly took his life reappears and swallows the riverbank.

He sits in the branches of the tree, woozy and sweating under his layers. A cannon fires.

He doesn't remember stumbling back to the cave, but when he wakes up, Atsumu's worried eyes are peering at him. For a second, Sakusa thinks is fever has broken but realized the whites of his eyes don't look right, and that he's breathing rather heavily.

"I thought you died."

Sakusa shakes his head, trying to move. Atsumu helps him up into a sitting position, shivering still, "Careful, there's a giant lump on one side the size of an orange."

"I fell on the rocks," His mouth manages to form. Atsumu presses the bottle of water to him and Sakusa gulps some gratefully, gnawing on a leftover onigiri from their feast last night. Atsumu is chewing sand colored bark— did Sakusa somehow grab more after Two's cannon fired? His head is so heavy, "Only two more tributes are left. Five and Ten."

"Two and Three died?"

"Of course."

Atsumu gives him a wry smile, "I feel like I've been underestimating you a bit," In the firelight, his skin looks golden, hot to the touch and almost giving Sakusa a burn when he presses their foreheads together.

"What are you doing?" Comes the quiet voice of Atsumu.

"I don't understand," He gives a frustrated sigh, leaning back up and pushing Atsumu to lie down. "I don't think the Gamemakers would give us expired medication, so why isn't your fever not breaking?"

Atsumu shrugs, stiffly relaxing like he's an old man. So his fever is now fever _and_ aches. The symptoms are so vague that Sakusa doesn't know what to do, racking his head over the things that have happened recently. They eat the same food, drink the same water and nothing's happened to him.

Along wall of the cave rests his backpack with two puncture holes from Two's swords, the machetes in question resting next to it. 

Wait. A hole?

Sakusa leans forward, digging in his pack as Atsumu's head twitches at his movements, "Sakusa?"

"Did you ever have bug spray at the beginning, when the Games started?"

"Not until we became allies," Atsumu weakly replies, "Why?"

Sakusa unearths the mysterious pills he'd looked at briefly on the first day, glad that they never fell out of his bag on his blind crawl back. Atsumu's eyes squints at it.

"Plaquenil. _Anti-malarial medicine_ ," He shakes two pills out, trying to remember the signs and symptoms of malaria in the bug station, "Fever, headaches, aches and chills, the whites of your eyes are turning yellow, which is a sign of jaundice— your liver is enlarged. I never caught what you had because I've been wearing this since the first hour of the games but I didn't realize your pack didn't have one."

Atsumu swallows the two pills and lies back down, "But we share saliva."

"It's not transmitted that way, you need mosquitos," Sakusa waits impatiently over the next hour, watching Atsumu's eyelids flutter to a close. He goes to the entrance of the cave when the anthem blares and watches the Capitol broadcast Two's— Semi Eita's— and Konoha's face before the image in the sky disappears.

Konoha's voice as he falls into the river. Semi begging him for help. The fear in their eyes.

It's stopped raining. He gives the lump on the ground a glance before deciding to scavenge for food, quietly promising Atsumu that he'll be back.

"Wake up!"

Sakusa rolls to a sitting position in a panic, automatically hiking one strap of his backpack on one shoulder as Atsumu's feverish eyes is seen in the gloom of the cave. He opens his mouth to ask what's wrong when he feels the mountainside shudder.

"Fuck, fuck!" He swipes the machetes, glad he went to bed with his jacket on. He tells Atsumu to hold his swords and eases him out of the tunnels, torn between being gentle and rushing when fear wins out and he picks Atsumu up in a fireman's carry.

A cannon fires. Sakusa runs down the mountain face at a quick jog as Atsumu bounces on his shoulders, "Where are you going?"

Sakusa spits palm leaves out of his mouth, "The clearing! The trees will fall!"

And sure enough, the moment he says it, the Gamemakers give them warning via a variety of creaking from all sides. Sakusa hastens his pace and is flat out sprinting on the mountainside, hopping and twisting to avoid roots and thinking about how there's four of them left, and of course the Capitol is impatient now. Instead of a restful night, they want to end this now, on the eighth day.

"They're making earthquakes knowing that we'll go to the clearing where there's no signs of trees," Sakusa yells, hearing crashes behind him. He passes the orchards of nuts where he and Atsumu shared their first kiss, landing poorly and nearly hurling Atsumu over his shoulder. 

He presses forward, Atsumu shouting warnings like which direction he should run, watch out for roots, there's a spiny tree ahead, careful of the hole in the ground.

Sakusa leaps out of the forest and immediately, without thinking, flicks his left hand forward, feeling Atsumu slide down his shoulder slightly.

His throwing knife embeds itself in Ten's thighs, where he's standing near the clearing, panting and red. Sakusa drops Atsumu not so gently, tugging one machete out of his hand and swinging his arm down.

Ten blocks him not a second too soon, fear in his eyes. He's drenched, looking like he'd slipped into the river on his way here. District 10 is responsible for cattle and Sakusa grits his teeth, feeling his machete being ripped away from his hand from the brute strength of their tribute.

"Sorry I'm so strong."

Sakusa gives him a wicked, pained grin, flexing his left hand, "I love a good challenge."

Ten's brown eyes darts towards Atsumu and Sakusa shifts, blocking him with one arm spread to the side, like he'll catch Ten if he tries to run past him, "Me first. You're not getting him."

Ten gives him a confused expression, his voice deep, "Why?"

Sakusa doesn't answer that question, flicking his last throwing knife to distract Ten while he scoops up the machete and shrugs one shoulder of his backpack off. Ten's face pales in the moonlight when Sakusa unearths his net.

"You're going to copy your mentor, Oikawa Tooru."

"There's a reason why this tactic is popular with my district," Sakusa says, circling Ten. The Cornucopia is behind him and Sakusa knows there's a small watering hole nearby. If he can get to step into that, then he'll be in his element, "Because it _works_."

"No originality."

"Why should I be original?"

"To prove to them that you're not just a piece in the puzzle."

Sakusa huffs, continuing to press forward, "What do you know about puzzles?"

Ten doesn't say anything, confirming Sakusa's thoughts that he's just trying to distract him. No matter. Ten has two of his throwing knives and the moon is round enough over the clearing that he can see properly and duck if he throws them in his direction.

Then Ten flings his sword to the side and chucks Sakusa's throwing knives by his feet.

Sakusa stops. He looks up, seeing Ten's strong profile and cheekbones, "What are you doing?" He whispers.

"Dying by my own means," Ten holds his hands up, walking towards him until he stops before he pops Sakusa's personal bubble. His eyes are dark but calm, his voice even, "I don't... I don't want to die on their terms, you know. This is the only choice I have left in my life, so just make it quick."

Sakusa stares at him.

"Please."

Choices. The Capitol. What does the Hunger Games represent?

That they're slaves and serve to bring entertainment to the Capitol. He bets the citizens of the Capitol are screaming at their screens right now, Kuroo and Tendou are probably exchanging words, wondering if this is a bluff while Ten's family is yelling at their home, wondering what stunt he's trying to pull.

Sakusa has avoided thinking about his death for the sole reason that he has no use for that until the time came. But with Ten standing in front of him, willingly embracing death by throwing away his weapons, his mind is full of his family's faces.

"Your family."

Ten shrugs, giving him a soft smile. Even if the line of his shoulders are strong, his grin is endearingly awkward and foolish, like he never bothered to learn how to smile, "My parents are dead. My grandmother doesn't recognize me anymore."

Sakusa's eyes prickles with heat and tears, trying to blink them out so he can still see. He needs his vision to kill, to calculate, to think—

"And I know you have a big family back in four so.... Just make it quick."

"I can't."

"Just make it quick."

"I can't!" Sakusa yells at him, "Not like this, not when a life is just being offered up to me!"

Ten gives him a pitying look, nodding, "Okay."

Then he does something— raising his hand to his mouth when the cannon fires.

Sakusa stares, watching his body crumple in a heap. Atsumu's voice calls out to him but he looks down at his hands, at the netting from the olive rope he'd braided, at the machete in his left hand. He didn't do anything so why did Ten suddenly fall down?

Atsumu staggers in front of him, his hand feverish where it presses into Sakusa's elbow, squeezing. He goes up to Ten and turns to him, holding up a handful of rocks in his hands.

"Berries. Poisonous ones."

Atsumu had lowered his eyelids. Ten could look like Oikawa sleeping on the beach, a hand wrapped around a bottle of alcohol if it weren't for his darker hair.

"Oh," Sakusa says softly, watching the moon fade as the skies start to lighten, the first midnight blue receding into a deep purple. He falls to his knees, feeling the thick grass cushion him somewhat.

The sun is starting to rise. The Gamemakers must be impatient. The first rays hits Atsumu's face, his eyes still feverish and his lips cracked and dry. He'll be in no shape to fight. He heard a cannon when they were barreling out of the forest. Four became three.

Three became two.

Atsumu walks forward until he's crouching by Sakusa, raising a hand to sweep his short bangs. Sakusa feels a pair of lips press against his forehead before Atsumu pulls away, "Kiyoomi."

He tilts his chin up at his name, a tear rolling down his cheek without his permission.

"I don't want to kill you. Do you want to give me a mercy kill?"

He shakes his head, adamant. He bends his head now, tears flowing freely. Who cares if the entire country watches him cry? There's no one to judge him now, no one knows how he truly feels here, with Ten's body still warm near him and Atsumu's feverish hand stroking his cheek. What's even the meaning of the Games besides a guilty conscious hanging on the Victor's head once they get out? Income for life? Food for their district? A new house? What does it all matter to him?

"Okay," Atsumu leans in to kiss his cheek, "Okay."

He raises his head up just in time to lunge forward and knock the berries out of Atsumu's hands, tackling him down.

"Don't you fucking dare!" Sakusa spits in his face, gripping the lapels of his rain coat. The material creaks in his hands, "I figured out the malaria and nearly drowned to get your tree bark! Don't you fucking dare!"

Atsumu is calm, raising a hand up to stroke his wet cheeks, "Someone has to go home and between the two of us it should be you."

"I'm not letting you die in this arena!" His tears land on Atsumu, sliding down his chin and the curve of his jaw, "You need to go home to Samu, to your two sisters!"

"You have a sister too, Kiyoomi," A blistering finger sweeps tears away from his left eye. The grass seems to come alive in the morning sun, becoming a vivid shade of green that makes Sakusa think that he could trick himself and pretend that he and Atsumu are in another world, play-wrestling on a grassy lawn with a picnic nearby, "And you promised your cousin to come home. Hasn't this Game run long enough?"

"You could win," He's sobbing now. He doesn't want to go home like this, knowing that he'll see Ushijima's face in his nightmares with berries in his hand, of Semi begging him for help, arms tied together, of Konoha being whisked away in the rapid, of Terushima's troubled eyes.

Atsumu shakes his head, mouthing, _You need to win_.

He knows about the rebels in Four then, how Komori had been targeted and why the rest of the tributes are boys. Sakusa wonders if he heard it on his train ride here, hiding behind the door of the control room. He feels his chest cave in and spasm as he hiccups, brain spinning. Logic had always been his friend. He'd manage to out-trick every single Career without taking much damage. He just needs to trick the Game.

"They don't need a winner."

Sakusa leans forward and plucks the berries from where they'd fallen on the grass. They're large, resemble tiny grapes and have a waxy feel on his thumbs. He gives Atsumu four of the seven that had tumbled, staring into his eyes.

"Who says the Games need a winner?" He wearily thinks of Oikawa sitting on the beach, clutching an empty bottle and yelling at the waves when the night tide comes in, kicking the foam in blind anger. He thinks of his older cousin, Komori's brother, being stabbed in the back and thrown into a pond, of the way Ten wanted to die on his own terms, "I don't want to live in a world where you're not in it."

Will he be killed for this trick? Sakusa doesn't know but there's nothing else he can do but toss his life to the gods.

He moves forward to kiss Atsumu firmly on the mouth before pulling back. He sends his family an apology inside his head, hoping that they'll understand, staring into Atsumu's wet eyes as they both tilts their heads up in unison, seeing the oranges and yellows of the sky—

" _STOP!_ _STOP!_ " Sakusa immediately closes his mouth, feeling one berry slide in and spitting it to the grass next to him. The rest rolls down his chin as the voice of Tendou Satori screeches at them, " _STOP! Ladies and gentlemen! The winners of the third Quarter Quell, Miya Atsumu and Sakusa Kiyoomi!_ "

* * *

_victoria aut mors_

* * *

"He saved your life with that line, I hope you know that."

Atsumu nods, bobbing his head up and down as he sits awkwardly on the side of the hospital bed where Sakusa is sleeping. Oikawa, the mentor of District 4, is giving him a look that says Atsumu is worse than a cockroach that had crawled into his coffee mug.

Several hours ago, Sakusa came out of surgery where surgeons repaired his right hand. According to Oikawa, Sakusa will regain the use of that hand back, but Atsumu can see that the scars on his hands and arms from scraping himself on fishing equipment magically disappeared. 

The Capitol took that part of him too, the scars, the imperfections. Atsumu runs his tongue along the back of his teeth, feeling the too-straight edge when he knows he went into the Games with a slightly crooked canine and endless scars from farming equipment.

"How angry are they?"

"The Capitol is relieved that their star-crossed lovers are alive and well," Oikawa snarls, "But there is one man who's not pleased."

Atsumu ducks his head, he didn't think the President would be pleased when the number of victors doubled.

"His life is in danger," Oikawa continues to snarl above the soft, docile beeping of Sakusa's machines, "He was doing so well before you came into the picture. If you hadn't saved him, if you hadn't forced him to stay and repay your debt, he could've gotten out safely but he must continue this act!"

They have to continue their act of lovers to keep their families safe, Oikawa instructs him. Sakusa's in a precarious position where he's a live mine waiting to blow up. One wrong misstep, one wrong word spoken about the Capitol and all the victors and possibly the Districts of 4 and 11 will both be wiped off the map.

"How are you saying this without fear that they'll hear us?"

Oikawa narrows his eyes, "I have my ways, I'll leave now, because I have to prepare for your interviews," He walks around the bed, using a sun kissed, scar-less hand— the same scar-less skin Atsumu and Sakusa has—to brush away Sakusa's bangs and adjust his oxygen mask slightly, "But know this, Atsumu, this boy, when he wakes up, is now your responsibility. He got you out of the arena and he might have paid the price with his mind."

He didn't understand the meaning of Oikawa's words then, watching the man approach the automatic doors.

Atsumu didn't have time to ask in the days that followed because Oikawa refused to meet with him, making up excuses about costumes and Akaashi and a victor's party and Sakusa's new house that needs to be cleaned and ready.

He didn't understand it until he and Sakusa, sharing a loveseat on stage with Kuroo and the entire country watching the clips the editors have made into a three hour program. Atsumu has his hands knotted with Sakusa's, distracted at the way the stage lights shines off his hair and makeup.

Atsumu can tell Sakusa's not happy when Terushima dies, the hand around his tightening. It's all unpleasant, watching all of it and seeing how dirty and tired their faces are in the eight day they were in the arena. The Capitol is cheering for each entertaining blood bath though, and Atsumu feels a burn in his chest like anger as Semi drove his sword into Kita's chest.

The audience sighs in tandem when they kiss, a beam of sunlight making the scene perfect. His cheeks flush in the reminder, especially with their faces zoomed in and blown three times the size. Kuroo laughs as Sakusa hides his face in Atsumu's neck, ears red. Atsumu tugs him closer, trying to shield him because he's always been the older brother, right? Older brothers protect the younger ones.

When they get to Ushijima, Atsumu has no circulation left in his hand and hears Sakusa breathing in too loudly before the cannon goes off in the video and Sakusa jumps to his feet, curling into a ball.

Kuroo babbles something about the loud volume, so sorry, would they like some tea? The crowd stands to their feet as Atsumu wipes Sakusa's tears and glittery makeup away, nodding to Kuroo and agreeing that tea would be perfect, meeting Oikawa's hard set mouth from where he's standing backstage.

Only Peacekeepers, Capitol officials and certain people are allowed to travel between the districts for the purposes of business. Atsumu becomes the first citizen to hold a special boarding pass that allows him to tag along on the food train to Four whenever he wants because he and Sakusa are now inseparable lovers.

The tablet in his hands automatically goes to the next video in the playlist, one of his and Sakusa's pre-Game interview with Kuroo, when someone starts screaming on the train.

Atsumu flings his covers off and barges into Sakusa's room, going to the lump curled up on the floor next to a too large bed, the blankets and sheets pulled down to the shaggy carpeted floors. He shakes him awake, running his fingernails through his scalp and brushing away the knots in his curly hair.

Sakusa looks left and right, groggy and confused, before he takes in the stuffy decorations and the clench in his jaw relaxes.

"Sorry," He sits up stiffly. Akaashi and Aran, Atsumu's stylist, had dressed them as the moon and sun respectively on the interviews. Atsumu glances at the large eye bags beneath Sakusa's eyes, "I'll take a sleep syrup or something."

"I get them too."

Sakusa stops in his movement, one hand about to press a button on the wall. 

Their interactions after he woke up had been cold and awkward, a fact that makes Oikawa both worried and happy at the same time because to him, Atsumu is the devil and the cause of Sakusa's sufferings. His cold act had forced Atsumu to work harder during interviews with Kuroo, but it's a small price to pay in comparison to what Sakusa did for him in the arena.

"I get them too," Atsumu repeats quietly, stroking his thumb on the thick comforter wound around Sakusa, "The nightmares."

They sleep together on the floor. Sakusa tells him he falls asleep easier when he's on the floor. Atsumu understands somewhat. It's like the cave except Atsumu's too warm, too full, too aware of the precarious act he has to keep up to ensure their families and the other victors aren't dragged into a rebellion.

"Kiyoomi?"

He doesn't know when Sakusa turned from 'Sakusa' into 'Kiyoomi', but Atsumu thinks that escaping death has given him a right to use his first name like that.

"Hm?"

He turns to look at Sakusa's profile, bathed in the moonlight as they speed out of the mountainside of District 2. Sakusa will reach District 4 by morning, and it'll take Atsumu another three days of travel to reach District 11.

Atsumu has a million questions for him, some ranging from hurtful ("Why did you save the both of us? It's better to be dead than to be alive."), nonsensical ("So we've kissed but I don't know anything about you aside from the fact that you love harpoons and the open sea. Do you have a favorite color?").

What comes out is, "What do we do when we go back?"

Back to their previous lives where they'll never be the same, jumping at loud noises, sleeping on floors. Back to a semblance of normalcy, back to pretending he's Miya Atsumu, main breadwinner with his twin, Osamu, as he takes care of Tsumugi and Homura while his mother attends to the house with milky eyes.

Sakusa turns his head to the right where Atsumu is already staring at him. Atsumu snakes his hands beneath the covers and finds himself clinging onto Sakusa's grey cardigan.

His district token, a pearl on a string, falls out and lies between them on the sheets, the same color as Sakusa's dark eyes.

"Try to forget," Sakusa whispers, "We try to forget, Atsumu."

"What if I don't want to forget?"

They take turns visiting.

The first time Atsumu reaches District 4, Oikawa is tapping his feet, bundled up in a coat, dragging him to a car and shoving him inside. Atsumu has never been inside a _car_ car (tractors don't count), and he rubs the leather seats below him and blinks at everything and anything, glued to the window. 

_That's the academy_ , Oikawa would point out, where Atsumu could see a giant grass field and kids with the same sun-kissed tan as both Oikawa and Sakusa grapple each other. _That's my parent's jewelry shop. Over there near the woods is Victor's Village. There's the fish factories where they gut things, there's the dock, there's the beach_.

"There he is," Oikawa points to a tiny figure on the beach, sniffling his red nose and stomping away, "Remind him he doesn't need to walk all the way home, he has a cellphone now, I'm sure he knows what my phone number is."

Atsumu barely gives Oikawa a word of reaffirmation, watching Sakusa sit on a dark wood log, dressed in black pants and a jacket with a grey scarf around his neck that seems to swallow half his face, staring at the ocean.

He still looks the same as the person that came out of the arena and went into the games. Beautiful raven curls, sun-kissed skin, dark lashes that sweeps the top of his cheekbones. The pearl necklace around his neck is gone and Atsumu wonders if it's returned to its rightful owner— girlfriend? Boyfriend? 

For a split second, he feels a wave of jealousy and pushes that thought away. There are more pressing matters to deal with.

"A seashell for your thoughts?"

Sakusa's head snaps at Atsumu holds up what he thinks is a seashell, rubbing the wet sand off the surface and taking a seat next to him. Not too close but not too far. Close enough that he could pull Sakusa down and shield him from whatever would appear.

"That's a sand dollar, they're a type of sea urchin."

"Really?" Atsumu turns the creature in his hands, frowning. It's cold near the water, no wonder Aran had instructed him to layer up last night when he called the landline in Atsumu's new home. "But where are the spikes?"

The second time he comes out, autumn has set in. Sakusa is wearing a monstrosity of a yellow and green jacket, something that's obviously not Akaashi-approved, by the scowl on Oikawa's face when he once again, picks Atsumu up from the train station and drives him to the beaches. Sakusa presses buttons on a small boat and shoots them into the ocean, Atsumu clutching whatever he can hold and emptying his stomach into a bucket.

"There," Sakusa's voice tugs him out of seasickness, where he had been telling him an amusing story of how he and Komori should meet since both of them can't handle the waves. His voice is quiet now, "The open sea."

Atsumu lifts his head from where he'd been staring at the water, spotting the line of orange buoys from Sakusa's stories and a couple of larger ships dotting the area with Peacekeepers monitoring them. Had it only been two months? It felt like a lifetime ago when Atsumu was swinging on vines and picking rambutans and stuffing as many as he can into his pockets.

A sea of blue, stretching from horizon to horizon. Atsumu inhales the scent he inherently associates with Sakusa now, a salty, clean smell with the clouds overcast.

They sit there until it's dark and they have to go back because Sakusa's mother always buy Atsumu some fatty tuna whenever he visits, but not before spending the entire day on the rocking boat in silence, watching the waters.

Sakusa tells him about the medications when Atsumu is showing him around his district's autumn foliage. 11 is poor, nothing like the grandeur city of 4 where they have paved roads and meadows and parks and buildings, but Sakusa marches through the manure and dirt without complaint, a sunhat Akaashi designed on his head.

"They want me to talk to a doctor," Sakusa mumbles, as Atsumu leads him to where the pumpkins grow.

"Doctors are good."

Atsumu tells him about his doctor, someone from the Capitol that Kurosu set him up with. They move to the orchards and stand around in them for a bit, people-watching and staying out of the way. In between going back to the fields and moving his entire family into his house in Victor's Village and seeing the younger children dance around holding jars of maple syrup on Parcel Day, Atsumu keeps himself busy.

"You're not working, right?"

Sakusa shakes his head, watching some children jump between the branches of trees with woven basket bouncing on their backs. He hasn't cut his hair since the end of the Games and the strands are gathered into a little ponytail, "Sometimes I dive if I feel like it. My mother is retired and I can support my cousin's family and my own. Komori is still baking though."

Atsumu nods. Whenever Sakusa visits, he always brings a giant container of bread and whatever he caught in the morning, the Peacekeepers helping him drag a box of fish in ice. Atsumu tries to give back too, always bringing fruits and vegetables and Osamu's onigiris that the Sakusas adore.

A season passes. They embark on their Victory Tour. Sakusa screams for Ushijima, Terushima, Semi and Konoha in his dreams, only stopping when Atsumu shakes him awake and runs his fingers through his cropped hair. 

" _Deep in the meadow, under the willow,_ " He sings, brushing the sweat off his forehead, " _A bed of grass, a soft green pillow..._ "

They ignore the fact that Sakusa nearly slit Atsumu's throat with a letter knife on the first night because Atsumu's recently gotten his hair bleached for the Tour. 

Sakusa barely makes it out alive after the Victory Tour, elapsing into the shell he once was in when the Games finished. Atsumu started to stay in District 4 more often, making sure his house is clean even if his mother and sister are more than capable. He takes Sakusa on walks to the beach, asks him how to weave a net and keeps his mind busy by asking nonsensical things.

He walked in on Sakusa showering once, though it was more like he was just standing under the spray. 

Atsumu rolls his sleeves up and tells him to sit down on the stool, squirting shampoo into his hands and looking down to see Sakusa's ribs stand out against his skin like someone's gnarled knuckles curling around him.

"Look, this is my version of the open ocean."

One of the lavender varieties bloom in the spring, turning the field into an ocean of purple. Atsumu draws circles with his thumb on Sakusa's cold hand, tugging him along as bees buzz around them, curious, "Pretty, right?"

He turns to see something glimmer in his dark eyes.

When the weather warms, Sakusa plants flowers outside Atsumu's house in Victor's Village. They do stupid things like jump through the sprinklers with all of his siblings running after them and make candied apples. Atsumu apologizes to Kurosu for the nightmares whenever Sakusa stays over for the night before his mentor waves the concern away. Sakusa brings back with him a box of preserved rose jam for his cousin.

Atsumu breaks the surface, heaving and spluttering, his arms around a floating ring that's tied to a rock, "How do you hold your breath like that?"

Sakusa laughs, pushing his bangs as he tosses another oyster into a basket floating, also tied to a rock dangling some twenty feet beneath them. It's late evening and the weather is cooling down, but today had been too warm and Sakusa asked if he wanted to dry diving for seafood.

Atsumu had swam a couple of times, even gotten surfing lessons from Oikawa and the other victors, but diving for oysters is different. His eyes are stinging from the salt water even though he has a mask to protect his eyes.

"Natural talent," Sakusa smugly says, popping back up again with five shells in his hands. Atsumu shoots him a look, pressing his cheek against the smooth surface of the flotation ring. The asshole's not even wearing an eye mask. Does Sakusa have a third eyelid like horses do that protects him from the stinging ocean water or does he just pat the sands blindly?

Sakusa's smile vanishes when Atsumu starts sneezing, dragging him to shore with their basket of goods. They take separate hot showers in Sakusa's home and invite the other victors for their usual gathering on Sunday night before Atsumu has to return to his own district on the first train.

"So I just jam it in?" He's awkwardly holding the knife in his hands, all five District 4 victors nodding vigorously. Oikawa is singing along to the radio, shaping dumplings full of shrimp meat and folding it with Komori next to him. Sakusa has stepped outside to cut green onions out of his personal garden.

"Mhm," Bokuto nods, the previous Victor before Oikawa won. He's the one who'd shown Atsumu how to surf, "Make sure you don't stab your hand."

"Wouldn't want that," Atsumu murmurs. He twists the knife and the top of the shell pops open, feeling Bokuto smack his shoulders as he shouts in his ear. Then he lifts Atsumu up to swing him around and that's what Sakusa sees, walking into the room rolling his eyes as far back as they go.

"Don't drop my boyfriend."

Bokuto laughs, settling Atsumu to his feet and dancing away to watch the boiling pot of water now that Oikawa and Komori have wrapped enough dumplings, "Course not!"

Sakusa sidles up to him, grabbing one of the many oyster shucking knives and removing the top of the shell like it's a walk in the park. It probably is and Atsumu shoots him a childish glare and sticks his tongue out.

"Sticking that tongue out more and I'll bite it," Sakusa hip checks him playfully.

Moments like this, Atsumu sees the snarky, sour boy who had everyone's eyes trailing after him on the night of his interview, dressed in a dark blue suit that makes him look like the ocean itself has emerged. Flickers of Sakusa's old nature resurfaces sometimes, more often now and Atsumu gives his profile a happy smile when Sakusa makes a noise.

His hand removes the black pearl sitting on top of the oyster meat, lifting it up to the lights. Immediately, everyone begins inspecting it, describing the undertones and the mother-of-pearl sheen and oval shape. Atsumu meets Komori's confused face and they both laugh it off, never being pearl experts.

"It's pretty!" Bokuto hums, "There's a bit of green and blue undertones. What are you gonna do? Keep it?"

"My parents would love to have it," Oikawa flutters his lashes, "They're working on a special orders from the Capitol, pearls are becoming all the rage recently because of your interviews."

Sakusa pockets it, moving away from the counter and peering into the pot, "The dumplings are overdone."

Bokuto starts wailing about their dumplings, rushing to the stove to fish it out. Oikawa grabs the green onions Sakusa left on the counter, probably chopping the garnish for their seaweed soup. Two other victors float away to make more shrimp dumplings and check on the fish frying in the giant wok.

Atsumu hands over a bag of fruits and a container of Osamu's onigiri to Sakusa, watching him place it onto the counter before they start walking down to the beach, a woven basket and a bottle of sunscreen ready. It's unbearably hot and they can watch the Peacekeepers setting the stage for this year's Reaping in three days by city square.

"Will you be alright?" Atsumu says, eating some freshly shucked oysters. They'd swam out, harvested some, sold them to the market per protocol and bought them back, Sakusa handing over some coins to the stall owner before they marched out onto a shaded area of the beach.

With proper meals, his body finally caught up and Atsumu looks like every other District 11 eighteen year old, wide shoulders and muscles cording his arms and torso from heavy lifting. Sakusa meanwhile, has gained back the weight he lost in the months after the Victory Tour wrapped up, looking no different for the exception of the ghosts in his eyes, maybe.

It's a far cry from the crying boy Atsumu soothed to sleep on their first night on the train back home.

Sakusa's dark eyes flits up, staring at the crew in white fussing around, "Don't know. Probably."

Atsumu knocks his knees with him, their skin scar-less from the treatment given to them by the Capitol even if there are scars underneath that they'll never speak of to the world, "You'll have me. I'm mentoring this year too, with Kurosu."

Due to a conflict of interest, only one of them could mentor if they wanted to. Sakusa immediately refused, which worked out nicely, but his prescence is still expected at the Games and Capitol where they'll have to convince everyone that they're star-crossed lovers once more.

A breeze plays with Sakusa's dark bangs, which in the sunlight looks like a dark brown than a raven black. Atsumu smooths it automatically, caught off guard when Sakusa leans in and presses their lips together before he relaxes his mouth and tugs him down.

He used to think that it would be far better if he'd mercy killed Sakusa out of his misery after Ushijima ate the berries. He sometimes has nightmares about that, seeing his own hands drive the machete into Sakusa's chest as he lies bleeding on the grass, a cannon firing off.

They reunite with their old prep team, their hands knotted as they sit in the control room next to the other mentors and past victors, observing twenty four tributes as they train in the Training Center, greeting Kuroo, shaking hands with the sponsors who'd kept them alive in the Games every year like clockwork.

They don't make trouble. He and Sakusa had their wedding in the Capitol in front of hundreds of teary audience, fate and destiny watching down with good graces. It's a lie of course, because they had a ceremony when Sakusa convinced the Capitol to hand over train tickets for Atsumu's entire family, sweeping them all to the cliff edge he leapt off as a child, hidden away from the rest of the District.

It's just one of the many things the Capitol can't take away from them.

The others? The black pearl on a necklace he wears under his clothes, knowing that Sakusa's admission of how he can't live without Atsumu in the arena saved him from being prostituted like the other victors. Sakusa and Osamu getting along whenever he visits, piggy backing Tsumugi and Homura as they run through the orchards around Victor's Village, a blue sky above them. Moments of peace when he and Sakusa are on a boat at the edge of the world, staring out at the orange buoys with the open ocean watching them, stolen kisses underneath the warm water, sunlight above their eyes as they hide in trees, the branches heavy with fruit.

He takes it all in full, because without Sakusa, Atsumu will never see his sisters survive past reaping age, never see Osamu's and Rin's wedding, never hold his mother's hand as she passes. He soothes Sakusa through nightmares because he remembered the way his world stopped when he saw the District 4's tribute step into the Training Center, ignoring the other Careers when they're free to roam and heading straight for the edible plant station.

A sight for sore eyes. Atsumu momentarily forgot that he was there to walk to his death.

Atsumu sets the tablet aside when Sakusa starts shifting around, seeing the sky burst into flames with a fiery sunrise. Sakusa drags the hand Atsumu had in his curls and kisses the fingertips.

Atsumu kisses his temples, "Morning, love."

Their cat, a fluffy grey thing with blue eyes, stretches and jumps off the foot of their bed. Sakusa stretches in the same manner, bending his spine until there are cracks.

"I had a dream," Sakusa mumbles, voice still thick with sleep. He rubs his eyes and rakes his bangs away from his forehead.

In a few hours, their prep team will hop out of the trains. Akaashi and Aran will style them in matching ocean and forest themes like they have been every year before Atsumu will get on a hovercraft with Aran and watch the Reaping of his own district. 

They will, like clockwork, be ready for the cameras, watching to see who is chosen before sending the tributes off and meeting each other in the Capitol.

It's not the life he wanted. Atsumu had dreams of reaching for the sky when he was younger, living with his brother and not having kids, tending to the orchards and making sure the crops are well watered. A simple life of avoiding trouble.

(He'd wondered, days after the Games wrapped up while watching Sakusa sleep in his hospital bed, if anything real happened in the arena. He's not bitter if it was all fake because Sakusa gave him a second chance)

But he will make do with this because he'll never regret Sakusa's decision. Sakusa may have said in the arena that he couldn't live without Atsumu to spare him too, but it's the truth now. They will not bite the hand that allowed them to escape. Perhaps, given the chance that they live multiple lifetimes, they'll fight for their freedom and break the system in another life.

But in this one, he will continue to be with Sakusa until their days run out, whenever that is.

"Of what?"

"We lived by a small village, in a little cottage near the sea with fields of lavender nearby," Sakusa murmurs quietly, the pearl Atsumu found, an iridescent white thing, around his neck, "The ocean was deep and the sky was blue."

**Author's Note:**

> tributes: (1) terushima, (2) semi, (3) konoha, (4) sakusa, (5) hinata, (6/7) unnamed, (8) asahi, (9) kita, (10) ushijima, (11) atsumu, (12) suga
> 
> writing this made me sad
> 
> -clears throat- if you haven't gotten your flu shots, as a healthcare worker, i recommend thinking about it this season due to the pandemic


End file.
